“But…” Emry prompted, reaching for another handful of pistachios.
“But you put yourself between my mother and father to protect her, to protect me. You did it again this week. Trying to stand between me and a madman threatening us both and then once more with my own mother,” he rasped.
“If you’re pissed off about that, you’re wasting your time, because I’m not apologizing. Anthony Hugo is a dickless slug, and your mother doesn’t get to raise a hand to you ever,” I told him, my voice shaking with emotion.
He reached out and took my wrists, his thumb sliding over the old scar. “I don’t want an apology. I don’t need one. I never did. You are the only person in the world to ever stand up for me like that.”
I opened my mouth, but he shook his head.
“Yes, Knox and Nash would if given the chance. But I’ve never asked. I never had to ask you either. You simply did it. Because that’s the kind of person you are. Stupidly brave. Dangerously headstrong.”
“Your proposals and your compliments really suck,” I said.
But he didn’t smile. Instead he squeezed my wrists again. “Broken men break women, Sloane.”
I went still. “Lucian,” I whispered.
“My father broke my mother to the point that even years later, she’s still a victim,” he continued. “She might never be whole or healthy because of him. I didn’t want to chance that with you. I didn’t want you anywhere near me where men like my father or Anthony Hugo could hurt you to hurt me.”
I gripped his forearms, unsure of what to say. I felt dizzy and off-kilter, as if his words were enough to shake the very foundations I’d built my life on.
“I can still hear the snap of your bones in my head,” he confessed. “I wasn’t even there, but it still echoes. It’s the first thing I hear when I wake up in the morning. It’s what I hear every time you walk out of a room and I want to go after you. It’s been my reminder to leave you alone. He could have killed you, and I couldn’t protect you because I was behind bars. I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t protect you.”
My eyes welled with tears. I reached up and cupped his face in my hands. His beard was rough against my palms. “Lucian, honey. It was never your job to protect your mom. It was never your job to keep the world safe from your dad.”
“For the record, that’s what I’ve been saying for years,” Emry cut in.
“Go burn a casserole,” Lucian said without any heat to his words.
Emry chuckled.
“I broke your trust. I’ll admit that,” I said. “I was young and impulsive, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him hurting you. You hear my wrist breaking in your head? I hear him screaming and hitting you that night. It still haunts me.”
Lucian closed his eyes. “Sloane—”
“No. Now it’s my turn. I was scared. Too scared to go outside and stop him. And too afraid he’d hurt my dad if I told him. Maybe if I had, things would have been different. But we’ll never know because I called 911 just like you asked me not to. And I watched Wylie Ogden march you out in handcuffs just like you knew he would. And I will never, ever get over that. If I had made a different decision that day, you wouldn’t know what the inside of a cell looks like.”
“I would have. Eventually. Because there was only one way he was going to stop.”
“That’s why I called. Because you wouldn’t have recovered from that. You would have spent your life thinking you were just like him. Which, by the way, means you’re nothing like him.”
He drew in a shaky breath, his eyes burning into mine.
“But thinking about all the what-ifs is a waste of what we both know is precious time,” I continued. “I’m so sorry you’ve spent your life believing that you’re tainted. That you don’t deserve happiness. That breaks my heart, Lucian, because you’re the most stupidly generous person I’ve ever met. You see a need to be filled, and you quietly go about filling it. You don’t require an audience or accolades. You’ve spent your life righting wrongs at the highest level. And that’s heroic. You’re heroic.”
“I don’t see it that way.” His words were quiet, but his hands had moved to my hips and were holding me gently.
“I know. And I’m so sorry you’ve been battling with that by yourself. You aren’t to blame for a single thing your father ever did.”
“According to him, I was to blame for everything. My room wasn’t clean enough. My grades weren’t good enough. I didn’t call him sir loud enough. Everything I did was wrong.”
My heart wasn’t just cracking open now. It was shattering into a million shards.
I held on tighter to him. “You did nothing wrong, Lucian. That was all on him. He was a broken man who tried to break you, but he failed. On his best day, he would never be able to hold a candle to you. I’m so proud of the boy you were, the man you became. You took back your family name, and made it mean something good. You don’t have him in you. I see more of my father than yours in you.”
“I have a temper. But I’m working on it. I’ve been working on it.” He gestured to Emry, who was still devouring pistachios like a chipmunk.
I snorted indelicately. “Who doesn’t have a temper? It’s what we choose to do with it that matters. Your self-control is annoyingly impressive. And that’s coming from someone who dedicated most of her adult life to trying to drive you nuts.”
Lucian shook his head. “All this time, I thought I needed to forgive you for what you did.”
“How about now?” I prompted.
“And just like it wasn’t your fight to win, it was never your apology to make.”
“I feel like you’re gearing up to apologize to me. Are you hangry or dehydrated?” I asked.
He traced his knuckles over my cheek. “You don’t need to apologize to me, Pix. Because I don’t need to forgive you.”
“Do you want, like, a Snickers or something?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sloane. Sorry for blaming you. Sorry for putting you in the position where you felt you had no choice. Sorry for never communicating what I really wanted or needed until now.”
“What do you need now?” I asked breathily.
“You. Only you. Always you.”
Now I was downright terrified.
He was closing the distance between us. His breath was hot against my face, and I was already anticipating the feel of his lips on mine.
“I think you’ve both done some excellent work here tonight,” Emry said, wrecking the moment like a human record scratch. “I’d like to suggest that you take some time to get to know each other on a deeper, more intimate level before you make any decisions.”
“Time?” Lucian repeated, like the word tasted bitter on his tongue.
“There’s a lot of undoing to be done. This is real life. It’s not like the movies where one grand gesture will convince Sloane that you aren’t going to close down and abandon her again,” Emry explained.
I’d seen that look before on Lucian’s handsome face. A challenge had been laid, and he was compelled to meet it.
“Now, who’s ready for some wine?” Emry asked.
“Me,” I said with more than a hint of desperation.
Naomi: How are things with Lucian?
Lina: Has he let you out of his bedroom/sight yet?
Me: Things are…complicated. Well, not in the bedroom, just everywhere else. He says he’s committed to this. That he’s not going to change his mind. He’s saying all the right stuff. Everything I’ve spent years wishing he’d say. But I still feel like I’d be an addled idiot to just happily believe he’s going to stick around and make a family with me.
Lina: What if he buys you a castle or something as a symbol of your happily ever after?
Me: I wouldn’t hate that.
Naomi: Or maybe his grand gesture will be listening to the therapist and proving himself to you over time?
Me: Great. We’ll play “getting to know you” while my eggs shrivel into raisins. I just don’t think there’s anything he could do that would undo twenty-plus years of distrust. At least not before I’m a barren wasteland of fertility.
Naomi: There are other ways to be a parent.