Chapter 18 The Party

Chapter 18 The Party


Chapter 18 — Lucien’s POV

The party was loud.

Too loud. Music, chatter, laughter—everything mixing together in a way that should have annoyed me. But I barely noticed. I moved through the crowd with ease, my suit sharp, my posture perfect, my face unreadable. I was Lucien Blackwood. I belonged here, even if this world of wealth, influence, and shallow smiles made me feel… hollow.

I wandered toward the balcony to get some air. The night was cool, crisp, and quiet compared to the noise inside. The city lights stretched out below me like stars fallen onto the earth. For a moment, I allowed myself to breathe, to feel something besides control, power, rules.

Then I saw him.

A man walking carefully, holding the hand of a woman who was clearly pregnant. She leaned slightly into him, and he held her protectively, guiding her across the marble floor with a gentleness that was foreign in this place. He laughed softly at something she said, and she smiled back at him, eyes glowing.

I stopped moving. My chest tightened.

I remembered Susan.

Her small, quiet steps through the halls of my house. Her trembling hands. The way she had tried to hide her hunger, her fear, her exhaustion. She had stayed inside. Hidden herself. For months. Alone. Always alone.

And now, watching that man and his wife, seeing him lean closer to protect her, listening to her soft laugh, I felt… something I hadn’t allowed myself to feel in a long time.

Guilt.

Regret.

Anger at myself for letting her suffer in silence while I… did nothing.

I remembered every night she had cried alone in her room, every meal she had eaten cold or left uneaten, every time she had called my name and received nothing but silence. My jaw tightened. My fists clenched.

I had been too late. Too cold. Too… distant.

For a long moment, I could not move. I wanted to leave, to go to her, to hold her, to make everything right. But I didn’t.

And then my phone rang.

The sudden vibration cut through my thoughts like a knife.

I looked at the screen.

“Tabitha.”

Her name flashed like a warning.

I answered immediately, trying to suppress the tightness that spread through my chest at the memory of her. My voice was steady, controlled. “Speak.”

“Lucien,” she said, silky, smooth, and entirely deliberate. “I want to see you. Now.”

Something in me shifted. My chest hardened. My thoughts scrambled. That soft guilt, that ache for Susan, evaporated. In its place came the cold, sharp focus I had always reserved for Tabitha.

“Now?” I repeated, my voice calm but sharp.

“Yes,” she said, and the brief pause before her words hit me like a command. “Don’t be late.”

I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think of Susan, or the house, or the party. I only moved.

“Understood,” I said. And I hung up.

The crowd around me blurred. The music, the laughter, the chatter—it all faded. I felt nothing but the familiar, consuming pull of her voice, her presence, her demand. I moved quickly, my long strides carrying me toward the exit.

Before leaving, though, I glanced back toward the balcony, toward the couple I had seen. My chest constricted. The sight of them—the man’s careful, protective hands, the gentle way he had smiled at her—made a hard knot twist inside me.

Susan.

I had left her alone. I had allowed her to bear everything herself. And now… now I was being called away by someone else, someone who had always commanded me in a way no one else ever could.

I stepped outside, the cool night air washing over me. The city lights blurred in my vision. My hands flexed at my sides. My mind was a storm of guilt, memories, and controlled anger.

She deserved better. I knew that.

But Tabitha wanted me.

And for reasons I couldn’t ignore, I had always obeyed her.

The car waited at the entrance. I didn’t glance back at the party. Didn’t pause. Didn’t give a thought to the hundreds of people inside, all pretending to be important. None of that mattered. None of it ever mattered.

The driver nodded. I climbed in. “Follow the route I gave you,” I said, voice low, clipped, precise.

The city rushed past in streaks of light. I didn’t look at it. I didn’t feel it. My thoughts were all with Tabitha, and in the corners of my mind… Susan.

I knew the second I arrived, everything would shift again. The delicate balance I had maintained—the careful isolation of my life, the house, Susan, the baby—would tilt. The past would meet the present. The guilt would fight against desire. And I would be forced to choose—or at least appear to choose.

For now, I let the city pass by. The hum of the car, the cool glass against my hands, the blur of headlights… all of it was nothing. Tabitha was everything.

But in the quiet, a small, bitter thought burned: Susan had been left alone for months. She had suffered. She had grown stronger, angrier, and wiser.

And I knew, deep down, the moment I stepped out of the car, I would see it reflected in her eyes.

The past, the present, and the consequences of my choices… were all waiting for me.