“No shit, I’m saying no!”
Lucian flinches slightly. He looks toward the window, the muscles in his jaw twitching. “Don’t worry,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to make this harder for anyone. I didn’t come here for you.”
Orion sighs, the sound heavy. “I don’t know what happened between you two, and I’m not gonna ask. I just need you both to be professionals. He’s not here foryou,Cel, he’s here for Ara.”
Lucian’s brow furrows. “Ara?”
Orion’s glance shifts to me, like he knows he’s just stepped in shit, but defiant at the same time because he is up to something he knows I will push back against.
Lucian’s head tilts, voice low. “Wait. You’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”
I don’t speak. I can’t.
He stares at me, eyes searching, the silence filling with all the unspoken things between us. I see the realization bloom and break across his face, the recognition, disbelief, maybe even a little awe.
His voice drops to a whisper. “You’re Ara.”
My silence is answer enough.
He swears under his breath, the air between us pulsing. “You… why didn’t you tell me?”
The question knocks the breath out of me. Not because of the words—but because of how they sound. Confused. He says it like it matters. Like I mattered.
“Would it have even changed anything?” It comes out quieter than I mean for it to. I hate that I sound like I’m asking him to lie to me.
He looks at me too long.
I know that look. That is the one that used to mean he was weighing his truth before he gave it to me.
When he finally speaks, it’s soft and brutal in its honesty. “No, but I made my choice. And I know it was the wrong one, but it never had anything to do with you.”
God.
I wish that hurt less.
Because somehow that’s worse than if he’d said I broke him too, at least then we’d both be bleeding the same way.
But this? This sounds like resignation and regret wrapped in distance. Like love that he buried deep enough to pretend it’s gone.
And I hate that I still feel it. That even now, even after everything, my heart still skips like it remembers how to fall for him.
I swallow hard and clear my throat before it cracks. “We leave at noon tomorrow,” I say, my voice clipped. “You can come if you want. Or not. We both know what you’d prefer.”
His mouth parts like he’s going to say something—maybe an apology, maybe something that would ruin both of us if he said it out loud.
But he doesn’t.
He just watches me, towel forgotten in his hand, chest still rising too fast, eyes dark with something I don’t want to name.
And I do the only thing I can. I give Lucian’s cat to Orion and leave.
God help me, I almost turn around.
Because the cruelest part of love isn’t losing it.
It’s still wanting it when you know it can’t save you.
10
