And he understood.

Seeing them stand there, letting another girl cling to them, calling them "brother" so naturally, while she herself was overlooked... it had undone everything.

The fragile progress they had made over the past three days, the careful effort to get closer to her, had all collapsed in that single moment.

And they are now back to zero.

The realization only made the guilt heavier. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Apollo pressed his lips together, stopping himself from speaking too quickly. Asking her outright wouldn’t help; it would only sound like an excuse.

No... what he needed to do now wasn’t to question her.

It was to explain.

And Ashley had only just returned to them after everything she had endured, and on top of that, she was supposedly suffering from amnesia. To be brought into a place so unfamiliar, surrounded by people she barely knew, it was only natural that she would feel uncertain... insecure even.

And yet, the first thing she saw upon arriving home was this. Another girl stepping forward, calling them "brother" with ease, drawing their attention without hesitation, while she, the one who had just returned, was left silent in his arms.

To Ashley, it must have felt like a quiet answer to an unspoken question. A measure of where she stood in this family.

The thought made Apollo’s chest tighten. That wasn’t the truth at all, but intentions didn’t matter when what she saw told her otherwise. And worse... he had been the one to let it happen.

He had slipped.

Instead of helping her get used to this place, instead of giving her reassurance, he had unknowingly handed her another reason to pull away.

And now, seeing the way she had closed herself off so quickly, he couldn’t ignore it anymore. That instinctive retreat, that guarded distance, it wasn’t something that came from nowhere. It meant there was something in her past, something heavy enough to leave a mark even through amnesia. A shadow that lingered deep within her, shaping her reactions before she could even think.

Which only made him feel worse.

"Okay... let’s go inside," Apollo said, his voice lower than usual, a rough edge slipping through despite his attempt to steady it.

The shift didn’t go unnoticed. The other brothers glanced at him, then followed his gaze, and the moment they saw what he saw in Ashley’s eyes, something in them sank. The warmth that had lingered on their faces vanished almost instantly, replaced by tight, restrained expressions as they pressed their lips together.

That quiet indifference... that cold distance in her eyes, it hit harder than any words could have.

A single thought passed between them without needing to be spoken.

If Aunt Lavinia hadn’t stepped in just now, would they have continued standing there, distracted and oblivious, while their own sister remained in the cold, overlooked in their arms?

The answer came too easily.

And with it, guilt settled heavily in their chests.

While guilt weighed heavily on everyone around her, Ashley was already somewhere else, pulled back into a memory she couldn’t quite escape.

The scene overlapped in her mind: Maddison’s return to the Yorks. The way they had gathered around her, protective and unwavering, while condemning Ashley and her mother without hesitation. The injustice of it, the cold finality of being cast aside... it lingered like a shadow that refused to fade.

That same ache stirred again, creeping into her chest, spreading until it seeped into her bones. Her gaze dulled, her expression turning distant, almost numb as she drifted deeper into those memories.

And this girl, standing here now, acting as if she belonged, as if Ashley didn’t, only sharpened that feeling.

It was too familiar.

That quiet dismissal. That subtle exclusion was just like that time.

She could feel it with unsettling clarity, the growing distance between her and her biological brothers, as if an invisible wall had risen overnight and now stood firmly between them.

It hurt more than she cared to admit, but even in the midst of that quiet ache, a sharper question took root in her mind: would she really allow herself to be pushed aside so easily?

Was she someone who could be discarded at their convenience, treated as though her place in their lives meant nothing? Ashley refused to accept that version of herself. And yet, she wasn’t desperate enough to force her way into a space where she clearly wasn’t wanted.

If her brothers chose to show blatant favoritism toward that girl, just as the Yorks had done with Maddison, then she would not linger and play the unwelcome intruder.

She would step back before things turned uglier, before schemes and misunderstandings painted her as the villain in a story she never intended to be part of. After all, blood alone meant little when there were no shared years to anchor it.

Whatever fragile goodwill existed between them could easily shatter under conflict, leaving her at a clear disadvantage. If distance was inevitable, then she would be the one to create it, cleanly and deliberately, for everyone’s sake, but most of all for her own.

Having already made up her mind, Ashley chose silence, letting her thoughts settle firmly and unyieldingly in her heart and mind. Unfortunately, her silence was misunderstood.

To the others, it felt heavy, ominous, like the calm before a storm, and it left them deeply unsettled, nerves tightening at the thought that they had somehow displeased their sister. Apollo, in particular, didn’t dare waste another second.

He hurriedly carried Ashley up the steps, his urgency unmistakable. By the time they reached the massive double doors, adorned with intricate carvings that stretched across the surface like a grand mural, Ashley barely spared them a glance.

Under different circumstances, she might have paused to admire the craftsmanship, the quiet opulence of it all, but now she felt drained, a dull heaviness clinging to her limbs and thoughts alike.

The doors opened to reveal a vast, open interior that seemed to unfold endlessly before them. To the left, the space transitioned into an elegant living area, and a little further was the sunroom meant for receiving guests, with further sections extending toward a private gym, an entertainment room, and other lavish amenities.

To the right lay the more functional quarters, the dining hall, the expansive kitchen, the laundry room, and the rest of the household’s working spaces. Yet despite the grandeur surrounding her, Ashley remained detached, her attention turned inward, as though the palace itself had nothing left to offer her in that moment.

The moment Apollo stepped inside, he didn’t hesitate; he veered straight toward the dining hall where the food had already been prepared.

The memory of Aunt Lavinia’s offhand remark resurfaced in his mind that hungry girls, she had said, were far more temperamental, but once fed, they softened, easier to coax, easier to read than most would expect.

It wasn’t exactly wisdom he had ever taken seriously, but right now, he was clinging to anything that might help. Ashley had mentioned in the car that she was hungry, and he seized on that detail like a lifeline.

If nothing else, perhaps a proper meal would take the edge off whatever storm was brewing inside her. With that thought driving him forward, his pace quickened into something just short of a run, his strides long and urgent as he carried her through the halls.