Chapter 28
Alison
As we walked out of the hall, I could feel Victor's eyes burning into my back like laser beams. The sensation was so intense it made my skin crawl, made me want to run rather than walk.
The back room was mercifully quiet, a stark contrast to the chaos we'd left behind. It was a small space, probably used for storage or as a bridal suite, with cream-colored walls and a few pieces of simple furniture.
Lucas closed the door behind us with deliberate care, the soft click of the latch somehow final. Suddenly, we were alone—really alone—for the first time in weeks, and the space between us felt charged with electricity. I could hear my own breathing, could hear his.
The dress I was wearing felt ridiculous in this intimate space. I was suddenly hyperaware of everything—the way it pressed against my ribs, the way the skirt rustled with every small movement, the way my carefully styled hair was already coming loose from its pins.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything unsaid.
"Alison—" he started, his voice rough with emotion.
"Explain," I interrupted, wrapping my arms around myself in a gesture that was half self-protection, half comfort.
The word came out harder than I'd intended, but I was beyond caring about politeness.
"Explain what's happening, Lucas. Because I feel like I'm drowning, and I don't know what's real anymore. "
He ran a hand through his dark hair, disturbing the careful styling, and I could see the exhaustion in his eyes—the same bone-deep weariness I felt. There were lines around his eyes, a tension in his shoulders that spoke of sleepless nights and difficult decisions.
"Victor planned all of this from the beginning, Alison," he said finally, his voice carrying a weight that made my stomach drop. "Everything. Every single thing that's happened between us."
"What do you mean?" My voice sounded small in the quiet room.
Lucas began to pace, his movements restless and agitated like a caged wolf. "He wanted what I had—my company, my pack territory, my position in the supernatural community. He's been playing a long game, Alison. Years and years of careful planning and manipulation."
I sank into the room's single chair, my legs suddenly unable to support me. The dress seemed to pool around me like spilled milk, white and pristine and wrong. "How long?"
"That first night we met, at that bar?" Lucas stopped pacing and turned to face me, his expression grave.
"Victor drugged me. He slipped something into my drink that was designed to lower my inhibitions, make me reckless.
" Lucas's hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"He had it all orchestrated. I was supposed to go home with some woman he'd planted there—someone who would sleep with me and then go straight to the press with the story.
The scandal would have been huge, big enough that your father would never have allowed me to marry Victoria. "
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. Everything I thought I knew about that night, about how we'd met, about the magic I'd felt when our eyes first locked across that crowded bar—"But you went with me instead."
"Yes." His eyes met mine, and I saw something there that looked like wonder mixed with pain.
I pressed my hands to my face, trying to process this information.
"So when you woke up the next morning...
I got a call. My people just found out about the plan.
They assumed you were the plant, the woman Victor had hired to seduce me.
" Lucas's voice cracked with regret. "That's why I offered to pay you.
I thought you were part of his scheme, thought you were there to destroy my engagement and ruin my reputation. "
"Oh God." The memory of that morning came flooding back—the way he'd looked at me with such cold disgust, the way he'd thrown money at me like I was a prostitute, the way my heart had shattered into a million pieces. "But I wasn't."
"No. And it wasn't until later that I learned the truth—that you weren't part of his plan at all.
You were just a beautiful woman having a drink alone, someone who showed me kindness when I was lost and angry.
" He sat down on the small sofa across from me, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
"You were my fated mate, Alison. I knew from that night, still, I let my anger and paranoia get the best of me. "
Fated mate. Lucas had explained the concept to me, and all it shed some light on was why I had also felt inexplicably attracted to him and why my heart always fluttered whenever I was around him, even when we were working together and I was supposed to hate him.
"So when I came back to town five years later..."
"Victor already had you." Lucas's jaw clenched with suppressed rage.
"He'd hired you, kept you close, planning to use you as a weapon in our ongoing feud.
Every day you worked for him, every conversation you had, every piece of information you might have overheard—he was cataloging it all, waiting for the right moment to use it against me. "
The betrayal hit me like a tsunami, washing over me in waves that left me gasping. "I was just a pawn," I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. "All this time, from the very beginning, I was just a piece on a chessboard."
"Not to me." Lucas moved to kneel in front of my chair, his hands hovering over mine but not quite touching, as if he was afraid I might reject him.
"Never to me, Alison. Yes, I wanted you back, but not because of some game or strategy.
Because I couldn't breathe without you. Because every day for five years, I woke up feeling like half of my soul was missing. "
I looked down at his hands, so close to mine I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. "Then why did you leave? Things were so good between us these past few weeks, and then you just... disappeared. Again."
The pain in my voice was raw, undisguised.
Those weeks had been like a dream—Lucas had been attentive and caring, bringing Leo gifts and spending time with both of us, making me believe that maybe, just maybe, we could have the family I'd always secretly wanted.
And then one day, he was just gone, no explanation, no goodbye, just empty silence where his presence had been.
"Something urgent came up in London," he said. "A crisis with our UK branch that required my immediate attention. I had to leave that same day."
"You could have told me." The accusation hung between us.
"I tried to." His voice was earnest, desperate for me to believe him. "I called your phone dozens of times, but it kept going straight to voicemail."
I frowned, trying to remember. Those days were a blur of confusion and hurt, of assuming he'd abandoned us again. "I… What? How's that possible?"
"Victor was screening your calls, making sure my messages never reached you.
" Lucas's hands finally closed over mine, warm and steady and real.
"So I did the only thing I could think of—I sent one of my most trusted men to deliver a letter explaining everything.
Where I'd gone, why I'd had to leave so suddenly, when I'd be back.
I told him to put it directly into your hands, no one else's. "
My heart started racing. "I never received any letter."
"Because Victor intercepted it." Lucas's grip on my hands tightened.
"Just like he doctored those photographs he showed you.
I swear to you, Alison, I haven't seen or spoken to Victoria since the day I ended our engagement.
I have no intention of ever doing so, because it's you I love. Not her, not the Black fortune—you."
The photographs. I closed my eyes, remembering the sick feeling that had washed over me when Victor had shown them to me on his phone.
Lucas and Victoria were at what looked like a romantic dinner, her hand on his arm, him leaning close to whisper in her ear.
The timestamp had shown they were taken just days before his disappearance, and seeing them had felt like dying.
"But you needed that fortune once," I said quietly, opening my eyes to meet his. "You told me yourself that your engagement to Victoria was about business."
"Once, yes. When I was younger and more desperate, when I thought success was the only thing that mattered.
" His voice was fierce with conviction. "But not anymore, Alison.
I've spent the last five years building my business independently, diversifying our investments, and creating multiple revenue streams. I knew the day would come when I'd have to let go of Victoria completely, and I didn't want to be at a disadvantage when that happened. "
The sincerity in his voice, the raw honesty, undid something inside me that I'd kept carefully locked away.
"Do you love me, Alison?" The question was so quiet I almost missed it, barely more than a whisper in the charged air between us.
I hesitated, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged bird desperate for freedom. This was the moment of truth, the point of no return.
"Yes," I whispered, the word feeling like a confession and a prayer all at once. "God help me, yes, I do love you."
Relief flooded his features like sunrise after the longest night. His shoulders sagged as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from them, and for a moment he looked young again, vulnerable in a way that made my chest ache.
"Were you going to marry him?" The question was asked without judgment, just genuine confusion and pain.
"I don't know. I don't think so. He proposed so publicly that I didn't know what to do."
"That's the kind of person he is, Alison. He is very manipulative, always looking for dodgy ways to make things go his way."