So. It had come down to this. She was gone. And he hadn’t even tried to stop her. Not that anything he could have said or done would have been able to dissuade her. She hated complications, and he had definitely been a complication. From their very first meeting she had known he was no good. But hadn’t that been what she’d been looking for? No, no, she had been looking for a way to distance herself from Sihnon, a way to . . . to find herself. Strange how she seemed to accomplish that whenever she was with him. Well that’s just silly. They couldn’t be more different. She was a lady of society, he was a petty criminal. No, not petty, never petty. He was always compassionate in his own gruff way. And he could even be kind of sweet when he wanted and he-he just made things too complicated so she’d had to leave. She’d had to. It had really been his fault in the end. He had forced her hand. He had made her leave Serenity, made her leave . . . him. That was fei-hua and she knew it. She had been scared. Scared of what might happen if she stayed and almost as scared of what might happen if she left. So she’d left, and there was no going back. Then again . . . she remembered the look on his face the night she announced she was leaving. She remembered longing to tell him what she had really wanted to say and hear him tell her what she was sure he had been about to say. But instead she had cut him off, not let him tell her the words that would have forever bound them together. Yeah right. She really needed to stop letting herself imagine such fancifully romantic things. In fact she needed to stop thinking of him entirely. It’s past time to move on. She stands up from unpacking her things and turns to leave her room in the Sihnon House and heads for the gardens.