If he hadn't learned his lesson already, he would do so soon. Being summoned by a Brighton was never for a good cause, and was bound to end in some sort of debacle or the other, even worse than what it already was.

Which is why Blake did not know what on earth he was doing at the front door of the Brighton Manor, the day after the scandal of himself and Sophia's betrothal entered the ears of everyone in London.

To say the least, Blake wasn't quite acute at times.

Nevertheless, he rapped his knuckles on the door of the manor, and then slightly winced. Only after he had gone home last night, did his knuckles start to burn. Punching Darius Kent had peeled off of his skin on his hand, rendering it raw and red. It had started as a minor prick to the skin, slowly developing to knives skinning him alive.

Ah, honor. What it made a man do and feel.

He was snapped out of his haze of pain when a man cleared his throat rather obnoxiously and loudly next to his ear. Looking up, Blake was greeted by Jenkins, whose nostrils were flared, and the permanent disgusted expression that lay on his face pinched up even more.

Blake swore that man swallowed lemons in barrels. All of London swallowed lemons in barrels.

He was made to sit in the parlor till one of the Brighton sisters or both came down to receive him. He wasn't sure which of the sisters called, but knowing them, it was probably both. The pair were as thick as thieves.

For nearly ten minutes, he just sat there, nervously twitching and tapping his leg on the floor. It didn't help that his eyes were drawn to the stain of drink against one of the walls that hadn't been there before, and the room faintly smelled of a strong gin. It burned his nostrils and Blake crinkled up his nose in disgust.

Why on earth did the room smell of alcohol? Suspicion and dread started to grow its roots in Blake's heart.

Eventually, a rustle of skirts dragged his irises up and his thoughts out of the swamps of his mind, to see Sophia smiling sadly up at him, her eyes full of misery.

Sadly?

What on earth was this about?

With all the gentlemanly attributes he possessed, he clutched Sophia's slightly outstretched hand and placed her gently next to him on the couch.

In the early morning light, she looked positively radiant, her lovely creamy skin baking in the warm sunlight that streamed through her open window and her hair tumbling to her waist like spilled ink. Her eyes shined like polished glasses and her lips look soft and delectable. Blake suddenly wanted to feel it below his own, bite those tantalizing lips, merge tongues with Sophia, but he controlled himself. Now was not the time.

But how he wished it was.

Every time. Every god damn time, she made his heart lurch like a lad in love.

She just stared sullenly up at him. The air seemed cold somehow, frigid. She was shut off from him, completely freezing him out of her thoughts. She never did that. The dread in Blake's heart blossomed.

This expression, this stature, and manner was so unlike what she was last night in the carriage. The night before she looked like she wanted to rip his clothes off in passion, but now looked like a lioness ready to rip him apart out of anger and fury.

"So, are you feeling any better? Has rest helped in your recovery?" he clumsily said, trying to break the ice.

The ice merely thickened.

"It's fine." She curtly responded, her tone flat and sharp. A brief silence ensued.

"So, what have you summoned me here, urgently might I add, for? We were to speak only a few days, for now, to let the scandal of our 'union' subside," Blake said, trying to warm the icy atmosphere again, get Sophia to open up.

"I know." Sophia briefly looked up at him with a steely glare and then diverted her eyes back to her fingers that were knotting and unknotting with the others nervously.

"Do you want to tell me why I'm here?" Slowly Blake's patience was drying thin.

"Yes."

"So, tell me so we can all get on with our lives! How do you want to proceed with our union? Stand up to London with a united front, or elope secretly, though it wouldn't be entirely 'secretive' now that everyone knows." The last couple statements came out more curt than he had thought and intended and she inhaled sharply.

"I love you," she blurted out and then covered her lips with her hands in surprise that she had said it. His heart leaped in joy.

"You do?" Blake grinned, surprised at this unanticipated response.

"Yes, no. I don't... I don't know why I said that. I.. I meant to say something else." Sophia's cheeks burned a brilliant red, and she looked overtly flustered.

Blake always found her adorable when she got worked up.

"Did you now?" he replied, smirking ever so slightly.

At his jest, her face immediately turned into the cold statue like demeanor she had first entered with. "I made a mistake, my lord. Please excuse my words, and do not make a mockery of me."

My lord? Excuse my words? Why was she being so sullen and formal, not to mentions cold and unforgiving?

Maybe he was supposed to say that he loved her back. It was perhaps time to do so after all. He couldn't deny that Sophia officially held all of his heart in her hands. He opened his mouth to do so, pure joy surging through his heart because this was the moment he had been possibly waiting for a very long time, but she stopped him before he could get a word out.

"No. Don't say it back please." Her tone was pleading and heartbreaking, tugging every string of his heart. "Please don't because I can't hear it and still say what I have to say... which is that yes, I do want to marry you, but I can't. I won't, regardless of what I may have said before."

It was Blake's turn to inhale sharply. A pain, unlike anything he had experienced before pushed through his heart like someone had driven a lance through it. His heart seemed to shatter into a million fragments and there was nothing he could do to fix it.

"But why? You just said you love me. Last night, we discussed how we could turn our scandal into something advantageous for us," Blake whispered, trying to reason with her, make her see her mistake, trying to make her understand the pain she was inflicting upon him.

"And that is also why I'm letting you go. You've ... you've damaged this family too much. Made us lose everything. You have somehow managed to make us think, say and do things we wished for no part in," Sophia said, trying to be strong and confident though she was at her breaking point.

Her father had sent her a note that very morning before he stumbled out of the house with alcohol poisoning his mind, that she had to end it with Blake that very day, but not tell him of the true reason why. In truth, she didn't understand her father's reasoning or lack of it either, but fear of his retribution was enough to make her comply, though it leeched at her spirit and heart.

"That doesn't make any damn sense! I may have ruined your reputation years ago, but I am marrying you now. And I'll help Colette find a suitor and salvage your name. I am rich and influential. I know people. And for that reason, all your heinous sins of now and the past will be forgiven. My name has power, Sophia."

"That doesn't matter. You've caused too much damage already. Nothing you can do will ever fix it. I realize that now. I have been foolish to ever believe otherwise. I realize that after last night, that you will always ruin this family," Sophia murmured, trying to put on a brave front. But it was useless. She knew he could see right through it, but she had to.

She couldn't tell him the real reason why he had to go.

I'll kill him. I'll kill you both. Her father's words echoed in her mind.

If Blake heard her voice what her father threatened her with, he would go after her father and maybe even try to kill him and if he got killed doing that...

Sophia would die of heartbreak, though it seemed like her heart was already being pulled out inch by inch. So, this was the best option. For everyone. Except herself.

'Sophia, where is coming from? This is completely contradictory to all you have shown and told me all this while. Has someone said something to you?" Blake questioned, trying to understand what the hell was happening because no sane man possibly could.

"No. No one said anything," Sophia said a bit hurriedly, causing a frown to appear between Blake's brows with suspicion. Breathing in and out, Sophia calmed herself and replied more formally and calmly, "No. This is a decision, a mature decision which I believe is best for my family. I should have done this the very first day you called on Colette here but wasn't thinking straight then. I am now."

Befuddled by her behavior, Blake could only stare with his mouth agape. What devil has possessed her wits for this evil concurrence with her conscience?

"I don't ever want to see you again. And neither does Colette," Sophia barked, gesturing at her sister who had just come down from the first floor. Colette, surprised at being addressed as she had merely come down to fetch her stitching kit, yelped and jumped up five feet into the air.

"Uh, of course. Yes. I agree," Colette spit out, her eyes widened in slight panic. An awkward silence ensued, in which Colette tried to make her escape. She had already caused enough damage. She didn't need to add further to the betrayal that she had posed to these two.

If Sophia wouldn't listen to reason, Blake would try Colette, though he wasn't the happiest with her for her manipulative, explained behavior. But it seemed she did want Sophia and him together, so that would have to be reason enough.

"Colette, why is she doing this? I know I ruined both of your reputations, but you were fine with that. You insisted I go after her, even manipulating me in the process.! Tell your sister she being insensible." Blake pleaded his case to Colette, but Colette resolutely shook her head.

"Well, I didn't realize that before, but I do think that know. You ruined us, something you shouldn't have done, even with my consent. I am sorry. You heard Sophia. Leave."

Blake gazed hopelessly between them. Something else was going on between them, he knew it with all of his heart. There was some other reason they were kicking him out for, something they were trying to hide.

But for the oddest reason, he believed Sophia and Colette were connected on this issue by one cause but were doing it for different reasons.

"This is an actual inappropriate unwarranted, quite frankly stupid reason. So why don't you drop the act and tell me why you're really kicking me out of your lives. Both of you have indicated you want us to be together, and here you are, doing a complete roundabout, preaching the exact opposite."

Even Sophia looked a trifle lost that Colette was supporting her, considering all she had done to push them together. But the heart was fickle and ever-changing and Sophia assumed that was what it was.

If only she truly knew.

And if only Blake knew what was going on.

He could see Sophia struggling to spill out what truly plagued her mind, battling demons inside her head which each claimed her to tell the truth or to lie. He could feel it. The truth was right there and she was about to spill it all.

But the words that came out next wasn't what he wanted to hear at all. "It is exactly the reason why we need you to go. So, if you say you love me at all, you will respect my choice and you will leave," Sophia ordered, her voice bold and brazen, though inside her heart was crumbling into ashes. "Go and never come back. You have done enough to this family. We need no more of it. Get out."

"It makes no sense," Blake cried, trying one last valiant attempt to make them understand. But Sophia just shrugged and motioned him to leave.

"I won't leave unless you explain yourself."

"I said to leave at once, good sir."

"No."

"I will call the local authorities!"

"Sophia, you are spitting mad! What has gotten into you?"

"Blake, leave. If you respect me, as you often say you do, you will respect me now." Sophia had to use every once of her willpower not to cry. These words felt like acid on her tongue, burning it and boiling her insides alive.

Heartbreak.

It was bitter, slow poison to one's heart.

"I don't like this. I don't even get this. This is so sudden."

"And it is for the best. Goodbye, Blake." Sophia tried to maintain a calm demeanor, though inside her banshees were wailing for the death of her spirit. Nodding curtly at Blake, she got up and as quickly as possible fled from the room.

And hence, with absolutely no choice, Blake left. It crushed his ribs and he felt it like a bludgeoned to his very soul, but he did.

Not out of force, but out of respect.

He had his heart broken a few times before in his life by women he had pursued, or what he assumed to be heartbreak, but nothing had ever felt like this. It felt like someone had practically sliced up his heart into ribbons. He felt the very foundations of his world collapsing, his mind shutting down, everything becoming an endless blank until he couldn't feel at all.

He felt like a large, integral piece him had been chopped.

He didn't even feel like Blake anymore.

The moment Sophia heard the front door downstairs click shut, the dam of tears in her broke its wall and it all surged out.

"I love him. I love him so much. So much, and he's gone. Gone," she bawled loudly, her chest heaving. Colette kneeled next to Sophia's chair and wrapped her arms around Sophia's neck, pulling Sophia closer to her until she lay in the crook of her neck and shoulder. "He's gone for good this time."

"I know, Soph. I know. I am so, so sorry. I cannot even begin to tell you how sorry I am for you. And how angry I am at father for making you do this." Colette reassured, running her hands up and down Sophia's back.

Though Colette knew about everything that would occur before Sophia had poured out her heart to her last night, Colette still had to play the innocent as her father dictated. She had to pretend as she was hearing about the breaking apart idea for the first time from Sophia, not already possessing the knowledge before.

"You had to let him go to protect him. Father would have killed him. You did the right thing." Colette clutched Sophia to her, embracing her with her all her strength, trying to comfort Sophia, though a broken heart was too hard to nurse by anyone.

A betrayal accompanied by a broken heart. What a pair these two were.

"I know. I know he would have. But it doesn't make it any easier," Sophia sobbed, crying even more hysterically. "I hate him. I hate father! He made me do something I wished not to without even saying why. I could have risked not listening, but if Blake got hurt, I would never forget myself. Why is love so cruel?"

Sophia didn't know how long she cried in her little sister's arms. As the older one, she was supposed to be the rock for her family and here her little sister was, comforting her.

But comfort wasn't what Sophia needed. What she needed was Blake Cavendish. But he was gone.

He was gone for good and she would never see him again. Damn her father for doing this! Damn the whole goddamn world! But most of all she damned herself to hell for letting herself fall in love at all.

"If it's love, it will always be cruel to one's heart." Colette soothed her sister, though she knew she was the partial root cause for seeding and developing this misery.

If only she had somehow stood up to her father, told Sophia about what he threatened to do, when he had first approached her.

But it was too late now.

All that could be done was to sit and watch the events to unfold.

And hope Fate had some mercy to spare after all.

A/N: Do you even think Blake and Sophia will even end up together? It seems everything in the world is determined to keep them apart!

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