Chapter 58 A third husband?
I should give them space. The realization was instinctive.
Whatever this was, it was outside of me, of our trio.
This was an aftershock of that time they both stuck a knife in my heart with… an affair? I could not even call it an affair anymore.
Not after the revelations these past few days.
The truths that made it hurt worse. Hale, hypersexual and incredibly sensual, had not needed sex with her. Not a kiss or even touch to fuel and sustain their whirlwind romance.
A relationship that was so intense it nearly killed him when it ended.
I winced now. Unable to even look at them anymore.
But my body remained frozen, unmoving. She was mine now. Priced possession and pet.
Mine to protect, even if the danger was my own lover.
“What is this about, doll?” I turned a little to the side, making sure to keep Hale in sight.
She shook her head, tears streaming.
Oh. More than one secret then. She just did not know which he had discovered.
Strangely, this did not annoy me.
In fact, I was impressed. As long as she wasn’t fucking anyone else. It was immensely satisfying to see that she wasn't as spineless as she appeared.
It took guts to attempt to keep a secret from creatures like us. And this promise of a spine excited something very wicked in me.
But I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and straightened up, “Hale, out with it already.”
“She is betrothed to the president’s son.”
“No, no.” She said in a rush. “Not betrothed, nothing is official, I don’t even like him.”
I turned to her in surprise.
Now would you look at that. Sweet Lys was deeper than she appeared. Again, against my nature, I felt zero ounce of jealousy.
But Hale felt different though. He looked fit to be tied, and I had to move away from her to hold him back.
Giving him a hard pat on the back, I rested my hand between his shoulder blades.
“It was an offer.” She was crying real hard now, lovely as a real life fairy. “I… I never said yes, but I was going to do whatever Mom and Dad wanted in the end.”
“Of course.” Hale bit off with all the bitterness he had so far managed gracefully these past years.
Her hand flew up to her lips. She mouthed Sorry. I'm sorry, over and over.
“I swear, I really do not love Fentone.”
“Does he know that?” I asked.
Her head bobbed in a nod, “He does, he should.”
“He does, but then he's planning a fucking engagement?” Hale said with vehemence, eyes a murderous rage.
I winced. For him, this was practically reliving the trauma of that horrific…
“What do you plan to do?” he barked now. “What are your plans, Lys?”
Beneath my fingers, his muscles were stretched taut.
“You plan to have a third husband, bring him here and throw him in the mix? Do I have to watch you with yet another man?”
There! That was my cue to leave. I needed space as much as they did.
Because despite my efforts to be reasonable, his rage was beginning to ignite mine, his jealousy was provoking my possessiveness.
Yet another man was the one phrase I could not afford to dwell on. Or pick apart who the other man actually was here.
I was turning away, already muttering an excuse when something caught my eye.
“Did you leave this here?” My voice came out choked as I half ran towards the barre she had been standing.
It made no sense. I couldn't have missed it earlier. One large bouquet of lilies was hard to miss, but a dozen of them?
A chill traveled through my bones as they both halted their fight to stare after me.
Leaning down, I picked up the bouquet and paused. Waiting for it to disintegrate in my hands, to crush into dust or vapor.
But they were as firm as my own arm.
“Daine.” There was a silent alarm in that voice.
I turned to find him staring out the floor to ceiling window, towards the garden where the sad-eyed vampire still sat.
Lilies, pink, white, yellow, red rained down from the large American elm tree he was sitting under.
But he was obvious to it all, far away in his thoughts.
I dashed out of the studio, barely slipping into house shoes before teleporting to where he sat.
“Finn?”
He jumped, startled.
I braced myself, waiting for the loathing in those eyes, for him to spit or curse me out. But when he met my gaze, I almost flinched.
Those were the saddest I have ever seen his eyes. As glassy with tears as the woman upstairs.
But I held back, waiting, scarred from his countless rejections over the years, to do anything but wait.
“Can I hug you?” His voice was raw.
Something caved inside me, crashing to the floor like fragile glass.
“Of course,” My voice was inaudible, clogged. But I stretch my arms out. He stood up, took two confident steps, and then crumbled into my embrace.
He clung to me as tightly as he did that day we rescued him from his father, who I ached to pull out of his grave and kill again.
My hand trembled as they went up to his hair, hardly believing this was real.
Nymphaea was back, in my arms, but with her the gift of the boy who never tired of spitting in my face all these years.
His hair felt like pure velvet, loose brown curls shaped like rotini pasta, flowing like literal air between my fingers.
He was beautiful.
I held him tighter, suddenly appreciating everything around me more.
The bright sun high up in the clear blue sky.
The wind which carried the chill from last night's downpour.
“It hurts... It hurts so much.” His voice caught, and then he began sobbing into my shoulder.
My hand froze on his hair. Damn me!
I broke him last night. In my arrogance and righteous rage, I had treated him as just my wife's cheating partner when he was also mine, the haunted little thing I had loved for years.
“Shh.” I cooed, deciding not to think about myself for once even though it hurt.
It bloody hurt that his heart was breaking over a person who wasn’t me. A woman he met only a few days ago.
She had enough power to break him to the point he was now collapsed in the arms of a man he loathed.
My pet, my porcelain doll with my mother's bone in her hair right now, had stolen the hearts of my men.
She had both hearts in her hand and could crush it under her pretty ballerina feet anytime she deemed fit.
And I could do nothing about it. Because she was mine now. Mine to protect too.
“Shh.” I swayed with him in my arms as if he was a little boy, as his body shook with heartbreaking sobs. “It will be alright. You will be fine.”
“I won’t,” he said with that naked honesty. “I… I can’t. I didn't sleep. Not even a little. It hurts just to breathe.”
“You were never this weak.” I pressed my lips to his forehead. “The Nymphaea I know would not cry over heartbreak, she would pin Lys down until she spoke to her.”
“What?” He pulled away, his eyes red and raw.