"So as you both know," Marcus continued to explain to Charles and Katherine, "we obviously didn't end up married to each other. I told my parents that night that I was in love with Lia and I begged them to get me out of the contract. But at that point, it wasn't just me who had been promised to someone else. They told me that Lia had been contracted to marry Richard, so even if they could get me out of my contract, they knew it would be near impossible to get Richard Mors to let go of something he had set his eyes on."
Marcus, Charles, Lia, and Katherine all sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Marcus looked defeated while Lia kept her eyes on her lap and fought against crying. They had struggled with this for over half their lives, and talking about it only reopened those wounds that they had both tried so desperately to close and move on from.
Finally, it was Charles who broke the silence by saying, "I'm sorry that you both went through that."
