Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
Sophie
At exactly six, the outer door to my office opens.
My pulse slams hard against my ribs, and for one ridiculous second, I consider hiding.
Then Caleb appears in the doorway, Lucian immediately behind him.
They came with nothing.
No flowers. No gifts. Nothing to soften what is about to happen or distract from the fact that they are standing here because I asked them to come.
Just them.
And God help me, seeing them again nearly brings me to my knees.
For days, I have remembered them in pieces.
Caleb’s smile. Lucian’s voice. The weight of an arm around me in bed.
Coffee appearing beside my hand before I realized I wanted it.
The heat of their bodies bracketing mine, the taste of their mouths, the impossible intimacy of knowing exactly how each man touches me when he is trying to make me lose control.
Memory has not come close.
Caleb is in dark trousers and an open-collared shirt beneath his jacket. His hair looks as though he has shoved his fingers through it too many times, and exhaustion shadows the stark lines of his face.
Lucian is wearing a suit, but even the immaculate tailoring can’t disguise what the last several days have done to him.
His face is a little leaner.
Not dramatically. Maybe no one else would notice.
I do.
And his eyes—
Oh God.
Lucian’s eyes are haunted.
The cool, controlled man who once overwhelmed me simply by walking into a room is still there. Still breathtaking. Still so composed that anyone who didn’t know him might believe nothing could touch him.
I know better now.
I know how those shoulders feel beneath my hands. How his mouth changes when control finally slips. How his voice sounds against my skin when he says my name like it belongs only to him.
I know Caleb’s laugh in the dark and the rough sound he makes when I pull him closer. I know the heat of his palm at the back of my neck, the hard plane of his chest beneath my cheek, the way he can make me feel cherished and devoured in the same breath.
My body remembers all of it at once.
Instinctively my nipples tighten beneath my blouse. Heat unfurls low in my belly, shocking in its immediacy, and my breath catches so sharply that I have to remind myself how to take another.
They are too big for my office.
That was one of the first things I ever noticed about them, how much space they seemed to occupy, as though rooms had to rearrange themselves around Lucian Hawthorne and Caleb Pierce.
Now it isn’t their size that overwhelms me.
It’s everything I know about what exists beneath it.
Everything they have done to me.
Everything I have done with them.
Everything I still want.
Everything I need.
Neither man moves farther into the room.
For once, they don’t assume they’re welcome.
And somehow that nearly undoes me more than seeing them does.
“You came,” I manage.
Lucian’s gaze never leaves mine.
“You invited us.”
The words move through me, simple and devastating.
I swallow against the sudden thickness in my throat. “Come in.”
Only then do they cross the threshold.
Caleb closes the door behind them, but he doesn’t lock it. The tiny detail shouldn’t matter. A few weeks ago, I might not even have noticed.
Now I notice everything… The distance they leave between us. The fact neither man reaches for me. The way Lucian’s hands remain loose at his sides, even though I know those hands well enough to remember exactly how they feel wrapped around my wrists, my hips, my throat.
Wanting floods through me so intensely; I almost resent them for it.
Almost.
I move around my desk because having a piece of furniture between us suddenly feels ridiculous, but I stop near the sofa rather than going any closer.
For several long seconds, none of us speaks.
Then I say, “I heard from my mom.”
Lucian’s expression barely changes, but Caleb exhales.
“She told me about the fund.”
Lucian nods.
“And Inamorata called me.”
At this, Caleb tips his head to one side.
And then I realize something I hadn’t before. Each of them gave up control in their own way, Caleb with my security, Lucian financially.
Looking between them, I ask, “Why?”
Lucian’s gaze holds mine. “Because it was the right thing to do.”
My heart goes into a freefall.
Caleb curls one hand into a fist. “Undoing what never should have been done in the first place.”
I can hardly think. “What changed?”
Lucian’s face is stark. “I owe you an apology.”
“You…”
I force myself to meet his gaze.
He takes one step toward me, then stops as if he has reached an invisible boundary.
“I knew exactly what kind of woman you were. Independent. Stubborn. Brilliant. Entirely unimpressed by what I could offer you.” Something almost painful moves through his eyes. “Those were the things that made you impossible for me to forget.”
My pulse thuds.
“And instead of trusting that woman to make her own decisions, I spent years arranging the circumstances around her.”
There is no excuse after it.
“I was wrong.”
My eyes sting.
“I’m sorry, Sophie.”
Those three plain words nearly destroy me, and I put my hand on the back of the sofa for balance.
Near him, Caleb says, “I fucked up.”
I turn toward him.
“I told myself I was different because sometimes I pushed back. Because I understood when Lucian was going too far.” He looks briefly at the floor before meeting my eyes again. “But when it mattered, I stayed beside him.”
I know what he means. The text from Voss.
“I let loyalty to Lucian matter more than your right to know.”
His jaw tightens.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Sophie.”
I wrap my arms around myself, trying to contain everything moving through me.
I never expected either of them to come to me like this, with apologies and no excuses, and I’m not quite sure how to react.
They have completely, thoroughly destroyed me emotionally. “Apologies don’t fix anything.”
“No. They don’t.” Lucian shakes his head, agreeing with me.
Then Caleb speaks again. “The only thing that matters is changed behavior.”
This moment, right here, right now, is everything I hoped for, dreamed of. And yet how can I trust it? “What happens the next time you think I’m making a bad decision?”
Lucian’s mouth tightens faintly. “I tell you.”
“And then?”
“I make an exceptionally persuasive argument.”
A tiny laugh escapes me before I can stop it. After all, he’s still Lucian.
Caleb glances at him. “This is his version of personal growth.”
Lucian ignores him, but for the first time since they arrived, something warm flickers beneath all that devastation.
Then his expression sobers.
“And after I have said everything I believe you need to hear, I let you decide.”
“Even if you think I’m wrong?”
“Yes.”
I look at Caleb.
His answer comes without hesitation. “It will still be your mistake to make.”
My throat closes.
There it is.
Not a promise that they will suddenly become men who never disagree with me. God knows I wouldn’t believe that anyway.
Something much harder.
They will disagree and still leave the decision in my hands.
I look down at my bare left hand.
“And if the decision is that I want a divorce?”
Silence settles heavily over the room.
“Fuck.” Lucian has gone almost frighteningly still. The haunted look in his eyes deepens, and I see exactly how much my question has destroyed him.
After swallowing hard, he meets my gaze. “I’ll sign your papers.”
I turn to Caleb.
“Goddamn it, Sophie…”
I wait.
Finally, reluctantly, he nods. “Yeah. I’ll back his play.”
Since I’m only technically married to Lucian, there’s nothing for Caleb to sign.
“No fight?” Once more, I look from one to the other.
Lucian draws a slow breath. “I will hate it.”
My vision blurs.
“But your happiness matters more than what I want.”
For a moment, I can’t speak.
There was a time when I would have scoffed at the idea of Lucian Hawthorne putting anyone’s happiness ahead of his own plans.
Before I can make sense of what I’m hearing, his voice drops.
“Because I love you.”
The room disappears.
Everything inside me goes completely, impossibly still.
I stare at him.
Surely I misunderstood.
But Lucian doesn’t look away.
“I love you, Sophie.”
Oh God.
My hand flies to my mouth.
Of all the things I imagined might happen tonight, this was never one of them. Lucian wanting me, yes. Obsessing over me. Possessing me. Fighting to keep me.
But love?
From him?
A tear spills down my cheek.
His face tightens as he watches it fall, and for one terrible second, I think he might come to me.
He doesn’t.
He stays exactly where he is.
Giving me the space I asked for even while his eyes tell me how much it is costing him.
“I love you enough to sign those papers if that’s what you want.” His voice roughens, the control finally beginning to fracture. “I love you enough to know that your happiness has to matter more than whether I get to be part of it.”
My vision blurs completely.
“Lucian…”
“I don’t want to let you go.” The words are raw, sandpaper dragged over steel. “God, Sophie, I would give almost anything not to have learned this lesson.”
A broken laugh catches in my throat and turns into a sob.
His eyes close for a moment.
When they open again, the devastation in them nearly takes me down.
“I won’t sacrifice your happiness to keep you at my side.”
Something inside me breaks wide open.
For weeks, I have been trying to reconcile the man who could be so gentle with my body with the one who believed he had the right to arrange my life.
And now he’s standing in front of me, loving me in the one way I never thought Lucian Hawthorne could.
By letting the choice be mine.
I swipe at my tears, but more immediately replace them.
Across from me, Lucian simply waits.