It’s hard to say, harder still to say when my sweet boy is just down the hall, oblivious to the cruelty of a man who should have loved him.
Lucian nods and grinds his jaw, making it tic slightly.
“I made sure they were set up, and then…I took his money and his business. I felt it only fair to leave him as helpless and alone as he left you and Benjamin.”
I feel whole when he says it, because no matter how much I want to tell myself that I had everything under control, I know I’d just been fooling myself as the house of cards toppled down around me.
It’s bitter and unforgiving, but the thought of Wesley suffering what we had makes me feel good and avenged.
“I—I should have realized he’d lose it and go after you and Benjamin. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I—”
“Don’t. Don’t blame yourself for something he did. He chose to abandon us and steal our inheritance. He chose to use me to hurt you. He did this, Luc, not you,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss him softly. “You saved me. From him. From losing Ben. From myself. You’re my hero right now, so please, don’t ruin that for me,” I beg.
It takes a while, full minutes of my unwavering stare, before he releases a shuddering breath and nods, accepting the truth of my words.
“How did you find me?”
I can tell he wasn’t expecting such a quick change in topic and that the question makes him uncomfortable, but I don’t care. If I’m gonna give him every part of me I want honesty and trust.
It’s all he’ll give me, after all. There’s no love for me; I’ve seen it clearly enough in his shuttered gaze, but if I can have liking and respect as well as honesty I think I can do this without freaking out every other minute.
“I had a tracking chip in your ring.”
“Say what?”
His head dips and then lifts again, bringing his burning eyes back to mine. The look in them is stubborn and unapologetic, the first real glimpse I’ve seen of my dominant man since being taken.
I’ve missed it, a lot, over the last three days and through the incessant nagging and coddling he’s forced on me. The look is welcome, though no less infuriating as it would have been just days ago.
I love him, really I do, but he’s got some serious issues about keeping me under his thumb, and if I let on how creepily romantic I find this I know I’ll never hear the end of it.
Controlling bastard.
“I had a tracker on you the whole time, and bloody thank God I did or I suspect we wouldn’t have found you so soon,” he mutters. “As it is, it was just dumb luck that made Harry stop at that dirt road. We almost drove right by. Don’t even get me started on the fact that I was about to leave those woods when I couldn’t find you. The next chip is going in your luscious arse.”
“Uh, no. That’s not happening.”
And don’t even get me started on how hot I find it that the guy is this crazy about stuff. Sure, I should be pissed that he tagged me like a freaking cow, but instead I’m just relieved that his obsessive behavior let them find me sooner.
“Love?”
He’s looking and sounding uncertain now, not enough to make him seem weak, mind you, just enough that I can see he’s not quite sure how to handle me now that I know it all.
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay about all this? About your—about Wesley and…”
“No. The man is deranged enough to have kidnapped me and expects me to put in a good word so you can get off his ass. I am so not okay with that. It’s also really chapping my ass that he’s gone nuts because his wife took his son. What about Ben, huh? Why didn’t he go nuts that way about Ben? Why was it so easy for him to leave him?”
Lucian’s shoulders tense and shrug, reminding me that he’s still more than a little cheesed about this whole mess, anyway. I mean, he’s been upset about it since the beginning. He’d gone after Wesley almost from the start.
No, it’s not his fault that I got hurt. I have to admit a lot of my injuries were somewhat self-inflicted, thanks to my fight response in stressful situations, but he has a lot to explain still before I’ll feel secure enough to let him handle it.
“Why didn’t you tell me about him and the money? You knew this for weeks and said nothing.”
He shrugs again and stands to prowl the room, his body yelling out his frustration.
“At first I couldn’t believe he’d do something that awful to his own… And then I got angry, really pissed if you want the truth, when I saw the kind of father he is to his other son. I admit I went a bit nuts. That’s why his wife left him; I went to see her and told her everything.”