Chapter 244 244

Chapter 244 244


Blair’s brows pulled together in a furrow, her chest rising and falling fast. “See what?”

His expression melted, a faint, lopsided smile touching his lips. “The way I look at you.”

Her heart skipped a violent beat.

Lucas leaned in, closing the small distance between them until she could feel the warm brush of his breath against her skin. “Can’t you see it in my eyes?” he whispered, his voice dropping into a raspy, quiet thread.

Blair stared at him, completely paralyzed by the sheer weight of his gaze, unable to pull away even if she wanted to.

Lucas took a slow, deep breath, his chest rising against her fingertips.
“I…”

The syllable hung suspended in the narrow space between their lips.

His jaw set slightly, his dark eyes dropping to her lips for a second before snapping back to meet her gaze,.
“I—”

“I…”
Lucas stopped again, his dark eyes dropping for a fraction of a second. 

When he looked back up at her, the sharp, guarded veneer he usually carried was completely gone. 

“I don’t even know how to say this without sounding like a man begging for forgiveness he doesn’t deserve,” he rasped, his thumb sweeping slowly across the back of her knuckles.

Blair’s chest tightened, every breath suddenly feeling hard to pull in.

Lucas swallowed hard, his throat moving against the collar of his shirt. “It all started that night. The night we made that mistake.”

Blair went dead still, her hand trembling slightly in his grip.

“I was drunk. I was furious. I wasn’t thinking clearly,” his jaw clenched, the muscles working under his skin. “But even after I sobered up... even after the alcohol wore off, I couldn’t scrub you out of my mind.”

A quiet, bitter laugh escaped his chest, entirely devoid of humor.

“I didn’t even know your name,” he whispered. “I didn't have a number, a face on a screen, nothing. But I remembered your eyes. I remembered your voice, and the exact way you looked at me right before I  walked out that door.”

A sharp burn stung behind Blair’s eyes.
“And then, months later, you came to the estate.”

Lucas’s posture stiffened slightly, a shadow passing over his features as if the memory itself physically pained him. He closed his eyes briefly, leaning his forehead against their joined hands.

“My head security came to my office. He told me there was a young woman at the main gate claiming she was pregnant with my child.”

Blair’s breath caught in her throat, the memory of that scorching afternoon crashing back over her—the heavy iron gates, the cold stares of the guards, the crushing humiliation of being turned away like trash.

“I didn’t even go down the driveway to see who it was,” Lucas’s voice cracked, thick with self-loathing. “I told them to turn you away. To throw you off the property.”

A hot tear spilled over Blair’s lashes, tracking silently down her cheek.

Lucas saw it, and his eyes filled with a fresh wave of guilt so profound it made him flinch.

“I convinced myself it was a lie,” he confessed, his words rushing out in a low, pained thread. “I told myself women did that kind of thing all the time—that people were always coming around looking for a payout. 

I forced myself to believe you were just another stranger trying to take advantage of the Brooks name.”

He shook his head, his dark hair falling across his brow.

“I didn’t give you a single second to speak. I didn’t ask your name. I didn’t ask why you were there, or if you were alright. I didn’t even have the courage to look you in the eye through the security monitor.”

A heavy, agonizing silence stretched across the quiet room, thick with five years of buried grief.

“And that... that is the part that tears me apart every single night,” Lucas whispered, his voice dropping into a barely audible rasps. “Because you were standing outside my gate, scared and alone, carrying my child.”

Blair turned her head slightly, looking toward the sunlit window as tears began to spill freely down her face.

“I sent you away when you needed protection the most,” he continued, his eyes frantically tracking her face, pleading with her to hear him. “I made you feel like you were nothing more than a liar trying to steal from me, when the absolute truth was...”

His voice broke completely, a thick knot catching in his throat.

“You were the only woman I had never been able to forget.”

Blair’s gaze snapped back to his.
Lucas’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears.

“I spent five long years telling myself I didn’t know you. Telling myself you meant nothing to me, that you were just a ghost from a bad night,” he shook his head, his grip on her hand tightening until it was almost desperate. 

“But every single time I looked at Mave... every time I saw his eyes, every time I looked at you across a room, every time you turned your back and walked away from me...”
His voice dropped into a gravelly whisper.
“I knew I was lying to myself.”

Slowly, carefully, he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a long, lingering kiss against her knuckles. A single tear escaped his eye, tracking down his cheek and dampening her skin.

“I am so sorry, Blair.”
Another tear fell, hot against her skin.
“I am sorry for that night.”

His chest heaved, a quiet shudder running through his shoulders.
“I am sorry for throwing you away when you came to me.”

His voice fractured into pieces. “And I am so, so sorry it took me five years of hurting you to realize that letting you walk out of my life was the absolute biggest mistake I will ever make.”

Blair’s lips trembled, her chest heaving as she let out a shaky, sobbing breath.

Lucas looked straight into her eyes, stripped of all pride, all arrogance, all defense.
“I love you.”

Three simple words, spoken softly into the quiet room. But they weighed more than the five years of silence that had built up between them.

“I loved you before I even knew what to call you,” he murmured, his thumb gently wiping a tear from her jaw. “And somehow... after everything I put you through, after every bitter word and every mistake, I fell in love with you all over again.”

His eyes held hers, unwavering and absolute.
“So please...” He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Don’t look at me and see the arrogant bastard who locked those gates on you.”

His voice dropped into a desperate, barely audible whisper.
“Look at me and see the man who has spent every single day since regretting it.”