Chapter 16. An Emptiness

Adeline’s POV

I just lay there, watching Theodore as he stood up and walked away.

No warning. No hesitation.

One moment, he was here, and the next, he was gone—like something had snapped inside him.

I felt so cold the moment he just left me lying all alone on the bed. I shivered, not just from the water on my skin but from the emptiness I was feeling.

He didn’t even look back. The second he stood, he simply adjusted himself and left.

He moved so stiff, almost like he was running from something—from me.

I gulped hard, my throat burning with questions I didn’t have answers to.

Had he regretted it? Sleeping with me the very first night we met at the bar?

Did something about me disgust him?

I didn’t know what changed, what shifted between us in that moment, but I could feel it.

I let out a breath, blinking rapidly as I pushed myself up from the bed. I caught my reflection in the mirror—still in Iris’s wedding dress