Chapter 3: This Time, I Did Not Draw

Vivian placed the second box in front of me as if nothing had happened.

“Draw again,” she said. “One bad card does not decide your life.”

Ella stood behind her, wearing a new cream dress and Adrian's ring on a chain around her neck. She had not been given the ring yet. She wore the chain so everyone could see what the card had promised.

Adrian waited near the window. He looked tired, but not ashamed.

I lifted the lid. The cards inside scraped against one another. I knew what he had done. He knew I knew nothing. That was the part he had miscalculated.

“No,” I said.

Vivian frowned. “No what?”

“I am not drawing again.”

Ella laughed. “You are refusing the only chance you have?”

“You already took the chance.” I closed the lid. “You drew Adrian. I drew Luca. That is what your box decided.”

Adrian moved toward me. “Mia, don't turn this into punishment.”

“You turned it into punishment when you emptied your own name from the box.”

His face went still.

Vivian looked from him to me. “What are you talking about?”

“Ask him.”

Ella stepped between us. “She is upset because she lost.”

“I am upset because I saw him take the cards.”

The room changed. Adrian stopped three feet away. Ella's smile disappeared, then returned in a thinner shape.

“You were spying on us?” Adrian asked.

“I went to get my coat. You were in the ballroom.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“You were removing every card with your name.”

Vivian's hand tightened around the box. “Adrian, is that true?”

He looked at Ella. She did not answer for him.

“I did what I had to do,” he said. “Mia would have kept waiting for a card to save her.”

“No,” I said. “I kept waiting for you.”

He reached for my wrist. I stepped back.

“I will marry Luca,” I said.

Vivian stared. “The driver?”

“The man whose name was left for me.”

Adrian's voice dropped. “You don't know him.”

“I know what he has not done. He has not taken food out of my hands or rigged a box against me.”

No one answered. The silence made the choice feel real.

I walked out before Vivian could tell me I was being dramatic. I took the thin jacket from my room and went through the back gate. Luca's car was parked across the street, its engine running.

He stepped out when he saw me. “Mia?”

“I need to ask you something.”

His eyes moved to the jacket, then to my face. “You are sick.”

“I am not asking if you pity me.”

“I did not say that.”

“I am asking if you will marry me.”

The traffic on Archer Avenue hissed over wet pavement. Luca did not laugh. He did not look toward the Grant house.

“Do you know what you are asking?” he said.

“Yes.”

“No, you know what you are running from. That is not the same thing.”

“Then tell me to go back.”

He studied me for a long moment. His expression stayed controlled, but his hand closed around the car door.

“Get in,” he said.

He drove south, away from the Grant mansion and its tall iron gates. He stopped outside a small diner near the river. I almost asked why we were there, but he was already opening my door.

Inside, the owner recognized him and brought a bowl of soup without asking. Luca pushed it toward me.

“Eat first,” he said.

I wrapped my hands around the bowl. “You knew I would come?”

“No.”

“Then why are you helping me?”

“Because you asked.”

The answer was plain. It hurt more than Adrian's speeches.

Adrian arrived before I finished. He came through the diner door in a dark coat, breathing hard. His eyes went to Luca's hand near my chair.

“Mia, come home.”

“I am home nowhere.”

“You are angry.”

“I am done.”

He grabbed my arm. Luca stood and caught Adrian's wrist before he could pull me up. The movement was fast and quiet. Adrian's hand stopped in the air.

“Let go of her,” Luca said.

Adrian looked at him as if he had forgotten the driver could speak.

I stood. “He is my fiancé now.”

Adrian's grip loosened.

I looked at him and said the word I had been saving for the man my sister had chosen.

“Brother-in-law.”

Luca released him. Adrian walked outside first. I stayed beside Luca.

The diner owner brought me a glass of water, and Luca waited until I finished the soup before asking whether I wanted to go back. I told him no. He nodded as if my answer belonged to me. That was the first time all week anyone had treated my decision as a fact instead of a tantrum.

I kept my hands around the warm bowl until my fingers stopped shaking. Adrian stood outside the diner window, watching us through the glass. He had come after me because I was leaving, not because I had been hungry. The difference made it easier to finish the soup. When Luca asked whether I wanted more, I said yes. No one made me draw a card.

Outside, I opened the car door myself. Luca waited while I sat down and fastened the belt. He asked if I was warm enough. I said the jacket was thin, and he turned up the heat without making a promise he could not keep.

When we returned to the Grant house, Vivian was waiting in the hall. She had another box in her arms, this one wrapped in silver paper.

“For your dowry,” she said. “Draw a card. It is all arranged.”

I took the box from her without opening it.

“Thank you,” I said.

Then I carried it toward the dining room, where Vivian, Ella, and Adrian could see it. I placed it on the long table and lifted it above my head.

Ella stepped forward. “What are you doing?”

I looked at the lid, then at the people who had watched me go hungry.

“I am done asking what is inside.”

I let go.

The box dropped toward the table.