37. Chapter 37
Chapter thirty-seven
Iwoke slowly beneath a warm blanket in the dim light of a gray winter morning. For a few seconds, I had no idea where I was. Then I recognized the guest suite at Nik and Lacey’s penthouse.
The last thing I remembered from the night before was curling up against Lachlan on the sofa with his arm around me. After that, nothing.
I pushed myself upright and looked down at the outfit I’d changed into after we came back from the park.
Oh, no.
I’d fallen asleep on him.
Not after everyone had gone to bed or when the evening was winding down. Worse, I’d done it right there in the middle of the living room while everyone else was still talking.
Heat climbed into my face.
How incredibly rude.
Lachlan must have carried me in here, put me to bed, and covered me without waking me.
I couldn’t remember any of it, which somehow made the embarrassment worse.
I’d spent my first real evening with his friends and family, sleeping through the end of it like a child who had worn herself out playing in the snow.
I threw back the covers and hurried into the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, ran my fingers through the worst of the tangles in my hair, and splashed cold water over my face.
I wanted to find Lachlan, apologize for falling asleep on him, and thank him for carrying me to bed. Maybe he’d found it funny instead of rude.
The penthouse was quiet when I stepped into the hall.
No one was in the living room or the kitchen. The remnants of last night’s gathering had already been cleared away, and the fire was out.
A fresh pot of coffee sat on the warming plate, and low voices carried from somewhere beyond the living room, although I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
I had just poured half a cup when Lachlan’s voice suddenly rose.
I set the coffee down without taking a sip.
“You did fucking what?”
The fury in his voice stopped me cold.
I’d heard Lachlan angry before—threatening men or giving orders in a voice so controlled no one questioned whether he expected to be obeyed. Even when he was hurt, furious, or surrounded by people trying to kill us, there was usually something deliberate beneath his anger.
There was nothing controlled about what he’d just shouted.
I followed the voices across the living room toward Nik’s glass-walled office. The door stood open, and from where I stopped in the hallway, I had an unobstructed view inside.
“Lower your voice,” Nik said.
“Don’t tell me to lower my voice. She asked you to investigate them, Nik. That was all.”
My stomach tightened.
There was only one them he could mean.
Nik had left his chair and stood near the end of the steel workstation, facing the doorway. Lachlan stood a few feet in front of him with his back angled toward me, tension running through his shoulders.
“I did investigate them,” Nik said.
“You took her DNA without asking her.”
For a second, I forgot how to breathe.
Nik rubbed a hand over his face. “Because I wasn’t going to walk into that girl’s life and tell her she might belong to a royal family unless I knew it was true. She has had enough lies fed to her for one lifetime.”
“She already knew who her mother was.”
“She knew what Eliana told her growing up. That didn’t prove Eliana was who she claimed to be. I wanted to know if they would recognize Isabella as family, or if she would become a complication they wanted buried.”
“That still didn’t give you the right to take her DNA and test it without her permission.”
“No.” Nik’s voice hardened, but not in denial. “It didn’t.”
“Then why the hell did you do it?”
Lachlan paced a few steps away from Nik before turning back.
“I found a Dravik DNA profile on an Eslovenyan hospital server and ran Isabella’s sample against it to see if the match confirmed her Dravik bloodline.
And it did. After that, I started looking for a way to connect with the family that didn’t involve sending an anonymous message to a royal household and hoping someone would take it seriously. ”
Lachlan said nothing, so Nik continued.
“While I was digging through the Dravik family connections, I came across a name I recognized. Turns out one of my second cousins married into the family years ago. It was a lucky break, but it gave me someone I could contact directly and trust to keep the whole thing quiet.”
Lachlan’s hands curled at his sides.
“And what did your cousin tell you?”
“The Draviks were desperate to find her and never stopped looking for her. They spent years using investigators, government resources, anyone they thought might find something. They offered rewards worth millions for credible information. They never believed Eliana chose to disappear, and they never stopped trying to find out what happened to her. As far as her family knows, Princess Eliana had disappeared without a trace.”
My vision blurred. Mamá had been right. They had loved her and wanted her back. All those years, Ciro had told Mamá no one was coming, that whatever family she remembered had gone on without her. But instead, they’d been looking for her the entire time.
Lachlan was quiet for several seconds. When he spoke again, the anger in his voice had turned raw.
“And you decided that gave you the right to tell them what happened to Eliana?”
“I decided they deserved to know she hadn’t abandoned them.”
“It wasn’t your story to tell.”
Lachlan stepped closer to Nik.
“She asked you to find out whether they were alive. She asked whether they were safe for her to reach out to. She didn’t ask you to tell them Eliana was dead.”
“I know.”
“And she sure as hell didn’t ask you to tell her mother’s family that Eliana had a daughter and that Isabella was that daughter.”
Nik’s mouth tightened. “Without proof, my cousin couldn’t walk into that royal family with a story this explosive and expect them to believe it.”
“Then you bring the proof to Isabella.” Lachlan’s voice echoed through the room. “You don’t bring Isabella to them.”
Neither man spoke for a long time.
I covered my mouth with one hand, but it did nothing to slow the tears already spilling down my face.
Lachlan turned away from Nik for a moment, and I caught a glimpse of his face as he dragged both hands through his hair.
He looked furious, frustrated, and utterly pained.
“Do you have any idea what you took from her?”
Nik’s expression changed. “I do.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Lachlan’s voice had gone rough.
“Her whole life, men decided what she was allowed to know, where she could go, and who she was allowed to be. Marcela stole her fucking identity. Now Isabella finally gets out of that compound, and you decide you’re the one who gets to tell her mother’s family she exists? ”
Nik said nothing.
“Her mother died trying to get her free.” Lachlan’s voice broke, and he stopped for a second before forcing the rest out.
“If Isabella ever wanted Eliana’s mother to know how her daughter died, she should have been the one sitting across from that woman when she heard it. That was Isabella’s to give her.”
The room blurred behind my tears.
For one terrible second, I wasn’t standing outside Nik’s office anymore.
Mamá sat at the vanity in her bedroom with the locket open across her palm. She touched the tiny picture of her parents the way she always had, carefully, as though too much pressure might somehow hurt the people trapped inside it.
They would love you because you are mine.
She had believed that until the day she died. Now her family knew she was dead, and they knew about me.
I pressed my fingers harder against my mouth to keep quiet.
Inside the office, Nik looked away from Lachlan. When he spoke again, there was no defensiveness left in his voice.
“I know I crossed the line. I wanted certainty before I gave her hope, and when I learned they had spent twenty-five years searching for Eliana, I started thinking about what that family had lost instead of what Isabella still had the right to decide.”
Lachlan didn’t answer.
“They know she exists now. They know she’s Eliana’s daughter. They know Eliana is dead, and now they desperately want to speak to her.” Nik’s voice roughened. “I can’t undo any of that.”
“No,” Lachlan said. “You can’t.”
A broken breath escaped before I could stop it.
Nik’s gaze shot past Lachlan and found me just outside the doorway.
His face paled.
Lachlan caught the change in Nik’s expression and went still. He didn’t turn immediately. He didn’t have to ask who Nik was staring at.
When he finally turned, the devastation on his face almost broke what was left of my heart.
“Isabella.”
He came toward me, one hand already reaching for me.
I stepped back.
The hurt that crossed his face made me want to close the distance again, but I couldn’t. Not yet. If he wrapped his arms around me, I would fall apart, and I needed to understand what had just happened before anyone tried to make it hurt less.
“Please don’t touch me yet.” My voice barely held together.
His hand dropped helplessly to his side.
I’d never seen Lachlan without some idea of what to do next. Now he simply looked lost.
“Lachlan, I know you didn’t do this. I heard you before either of you knew I was there. I know this wasn’t your doing.”
His eyes closed for a moment. When they opened again, the relief I expected wasn’t there.
I stepped fully into the office and turned to Nik, wiping the tears from my cheeks even though more immediately replaced them.
For once, the man who seemed able to find anything, reach anyone, and solve every problem knew there was nothing he could say to put the morning back the way it had been.
“I heard everything you told Lachlan, and I understand why you did it. I know you thought you were protecting me, but I wasn’t even sure I wanted them to know I existed.”
His eyes came back to mine.
“That should have been mine to choose.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“I have spent my entire life with other people deciding who Isabella was supposed to be. Now, you stole my chance to tell my own story.”
Nik went very still.