"I never lied, June," Dominick said sternly. "If anyone lied, it was you. You hid every truth about yourself behind a mask. I fought to save us. I tried to understand you when no one else would. I did everything in my power to keep this marriage from splintering into pieces."
Juniper reached up, aggressively wiping the tears from her cheeks, though her eyes remained rimd with red. "I knew it," she murmured. "I knew you would abandon eventually."
"Look at us, Juniper. We are beyond repair," Dominick said, his voice falling to a weary whisper, the fire of his anger replaced by a cold exhaustion. He didn’t want to fight anymore; he didn’t have the strength for it. "I don’t need your concern. You are free to move on. I will provide the alimony because it is your right, and because I want you to have a chance to survive. You should take it, especially since your family has turned their backs on you. Don’t let pride make you a beggar."
Juniper didn’t offer a rebuttal. She turned on her heels as she hurried out of the chamber, unable to look at him for a second longer.
She found Karn still standing in the corridor like a silent sentinel. He took one look at her shattered expression and the way her shoulders were shaking, and he knew exactly how the eting had gone.
Karn didn’t offer any words of comfort; he simply walked ahead. Juniper followed in his wake. Lester watched them go, his brow furrowed in deep thought. He decided that the Queen needed to be inford of this encounter imdiately.
When they reached the car, the sharp ring of Karn’s phone broke the heavy silence of the courtyard. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the caller ID.
"Yes, Gabriel?"
Juniper didn’t listen. She sank into the passenger seat, leaning her head against the glass of the window, feeling utterly empty from inside.
Outside, Karn leaned against the driver’s side doorfra, glancing toward the palace spires. "Yes, I’m at the palace," he confird, before briefly explaining that Juniper had insisted on seeing Dominick for a final confrontation.
On the other end of the line, Gabriel was silent for a beat, likely glancing at Alie and little Noah on the carpet before he spoke. "Let Juniper stay in that house," Gabriel said. "Tell her she doesn’t need to worry about the rent. She can live there as long as she needs. Just... Tell her not to create any more trouble."
"I understand," Karn replied, a hint of relief crossing his face.
"Let’s see each other in the evening," Gabriel added.
"Sure."
The call disconnected then. Karn climbed into the driver’s seat. As they pulled away from the palace gates, he glanced at the woman beside him, who looked devastated.
"You don’t have to worry about the house, Juniper," Karn said as they hit the main road. "Gabriel called. He’s letting you stay there, rent-free, for as long as you want."
Juniper blinked, looking at him in genuine shock. The Alpha Prince who had been so ready to cast her out was now giving her a roof over her head.
"I don’t want it," Juniper snapped, her voice trembling but defiant.
Karn’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he glanced at her in disbelief. "What? Why? Juniper, you have nowhere else to go. This is a chance to stay on your feet."
"Because if I live on their charity, they will never let forget it!" she cried out, the bitterness finally boiling over. "They’ll use it as a leash to keep silent while they say whatever hurtful things they want. So what if I exposed Zilia? I still believe she’s unfit to be the Luna Queen. She betrayed everyone with her silence, yet they treat her like a saint!"
She turned her face toward the window, her breath fogging the glass. "Nobody cared about my pain. Not then, and not now. They were always ready to bend over backward for her, but for ? Only judgnt. And Dominick..." Her voice broke into a jagged sound. "He doesn’t even want to know why I beca like this. He doesn’t care about the ’why.’ I hate him. I truly, foolishly thought he loved ."
She collapsed into the seat, burying her face in her hands as fresh sobs racked her body.
Karn remained silent, letting her grief fill the small space of the car. He knew that pride was the only thing she had left, but he also knew that pride didn’t provide a roof in the winter.
"If you won’t take Gabriel’s house and you won’t take Prince Dominick’s money," Karn said quietly after a long mont, "where do you expect to go tonight?"
"I’ll stay anywhere, but not in the places that belong to the royalty," Juniper stated. She wiped at her face again.
Karn reached into his coat pocket without taking his eyes off the road and produced a clean handkerchief. He held it out toward her. Juniper hesitated for a second before taking it.
"You could have been punished more severely, Juniper," Karn said. "Zilia’s situation was sensitive because Idris was involved. You know their history. They are orphans, too, just like you. Think of it that way. They struggled every single day just to keep themselves alive, but you were willing to sacrifice them to fulfill your own selfishness."
He shifted gears as they rged onto the highway leading away from the palace district. "I won’t sugarcoat it for you. You knew your actions would bring dangerous consequences, and yet you did it anyway. You can’t be surprised that the world didn’t move to protect you afterward."
Juniper tightened her grip on the handkerchief, the fabric bunching between her white-knuckled fingers. She couldn’t deny his words.
She didn’t just regret what she had done to Zilia. She regretted ever letting her guard down. She regretted the monts she spent believing she was special to Dominick. More than anything, she regretted falling in love with a man who could discard her so completely.
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