"Do you despise Isabelle, truly, or do you detest the idea that represents what you think you lost?" These were the words that haunted Karl Franz as sat there alone in his bedroom for a long while.
A cigarette hanged from his mouth, its length long since burnt to the filter. The smoldering embers of its life snuffed out, leaving nothing behind but something for the man to chew upon as he continued to contemplate beneath the moonlight.
He had never expected to be ambushed by the women in his family that he had always been closest to.
But it was his grandmother's words that had been like a nuclear weapon dropped on his entire existence. He couldn't even begin to fathom how he had appeared to others.
Did he despise Isabelle? Not really… Not when he sat there beneath the moonlight reflecting upon it.
He found her irritating, unprofessional, and utterly naïve beyond a level that was healthy for even a woman secluded away within the fragile peace of a royal court.
