Everyone around them raised their glasses in unison, the sparkling wine catching the light in a golden flash. Arabella lifted her own glass, the smooth crystal cold beneath her fingers.

"To the future," she echoed, but her mind was already far away, lost in the swirl of future plans and inevitable betrayals.

As the applause rang out and the party resumed, Arabella's thoughts drifted back to the tension simmering between Serena and Gabriele—the silent misery in her sister's eyes, the pointed cruelty in his behavior. It was only a matter of time before something cracked. And yet, there was nothing Arabella could do. She couldn't undo Serena's engagement to a reckless playboy any more than she could escape her own fate—bound to a man who saw her as a trophy, not a woman to be loved. They were both trapped in the roles their family had chosen for them. But if Arabella had learned anything, it was how to endure. So she lifted her chin, set her shoulders, and reminded herself: if she couldn't change her path, she would at least walk it with dignity—and try, somehow, to make the best of what lay ahead.