Page 34 of Midnight Revelations

When he said it like that it sounded ridiculous, especially since she was wearing a nightdress with a mouse on the front of it at the time.

I rubbed the palms of my hands over my eyes. “I’ve no fucking clue what to do anymore.”

“If you want my advice, do what I did. Claim her before any other asshole decides he wants to. Women will only wait around for so long before their nesting instincts start to kick in.”

“It would be different if I wasn’t in the middle of a war,” I argued.

“It hasn’t stopped Zee from claiming this Cassandra I’ve heard about.”

“She’s pregnant,” I pointed out.

“So? That just makes it even more complicated for him and he’s still forging forward.”

This was why I’d been avoiding Caleb. He wasn’t related to Lucrezia or considered her as a little sister. He was viewing the situation from a neutral point of view, and the slant he put on it made my stomach churn with sickness. I’d been doing what I could to keep her safe and making both of us miserable in the process.

“Why do you make everything sound so simple?” I asked.

His hand gripped my shoulder. “Because when it comes to the heart, it is that simple. Ask yourself one question, Ash. How would you feel if you never got to spend another moment with her for the rest of your life?”

My jaw tightened and I gripped the arms of the seat.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Caleb continued. “It’s as simple as knowing that she is the only woman in the world for you, and that you would change that world just for the two of you to be together.”

I contemplated his words, and even knowing he was right didn’t remove the obstacles in our path. “Thanks, Caleb. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

He gave me that assessing look he reserved only for his close friends. “I’ll be watching in the background and if I think you’re failing, I won’t think twice about kicking your arse. You were the one who forced me to take a chance with April. I want the same happiness for you.”

In the airport, my phone rang again and I almost groaned when I saw Jordan’s name flash across the screen. “Yeah?”

“I’ve scheduled a meeting for tonight,” he informed me abruptly. Xavier had obviously passed my message on.

“No worries. I’m just waiting for my flight now.”

“I’ll be waiting at the airport for you,” Jordan replied. “I tried to scrub the images of last night but some of them had gone viral.”

In other words, Lucrezia had seen them.

“Thanks, Jay. I’ll chat to you about it when I get back to London.”

I hung up and my heart plummeted into my stomach. She would never forgive me if she saw those images and thought it was me. Fuck, I even thought it was me only I knew I was lying drunk in my bed last night.

Terror echoed inside me at the thought of her walking away from me and I finally realised what Caleb’s words earlier truly meant.

I was fucked and didn’t know what to do about it.

***

Chapter Thirteen

Lucrezia

He wouldn’t.

Ash just wouldn’t fucking do this to me.

Papa had taken great pleasure in showing me the picture this morning and once again telling me how all Blackwoods were the same. It could be any man, but I’d only ever seen that shade of blond on one man before. Ash.

All the threads of emotions that held me together began to unravel, each stitch picked apart by all the photographs from the past few days. I pretended that I didn’t care, but I wanted to get on the next plane to London and confront him. I needed him to explain what the fuck I was looking at in that damned photograph.

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