Chapter 129

Aria’s POV

The moment Lucian stepped into the breakroom, everything else faded away. My heart began pounding in my ears, beating so loudly that I felt like I was trapped inside of a bass drum.

Lucian was here. He was right there in front of me.

He looked exactly the same. Stern and tall in his tailored suit, his muscles bulging the fabric, his shoulders wide. His hair was slicked back. His chin was clean shaven.

He was shocked, seeing me and Jasper together, but other than slightly widened eyes, his posture and face was the picture of poised decorum.

The sight of him made all of my old feelings – those I had thought buried so deep down the would never resurface – spring forward as if they’d never been buried at all.

“Our mate!” Luna cried. She too was overwhelmed by Lucian’s presence. “He’s here!”

She whined and whimpered in my mind, begging me to move closer to him. Yet I was frozen still, unable to move even if I had tried to. Maybe I was in shock.

Five years was such a long time, and I had felt every long, terrible moment away from Lucian, my mate. The man I had loved so thoroughly that I had been willing to divert my entire life plan just to stay by his side.

It was difficult to remember the bad times in this moment, when faced with him again after such a long absence, but I forced myself to, to keep me from rushing into his arms and holding him, forgetting the past five years and everything that happened. I’d fall right back into bad habits if my instincts were allowed to continue unchecked.

Almost as if against my will, I dragged back each painful time I was ignored. When Lucian had chosen Sheila over me again and again. Or when he’d forgotten about me, plain and simple. Birthdays, anniversaries… every time I had been gifted a card from one of his assistants because he couldn’t be asked to do something for me.

We hadn’t worked for a variety of reasons. In hindsight, it was so easy to only remember the good times, the good things, the good man Lucian could be to the rest of the world. I had to remember that people were nuanced, as were their experiences.

Lucian was a good man, but he had not been a very good husband.

My wolf couldn’t understand that in this moment, however. She lashed and she pulled, fighting against my stillness. She wanted to be closer to Lucian. She called out to him, again and again.

Then, in one frightening moment, Luna had been so distracted that my Dr. A disguise began to slip.

“Luna!” I shouted in my mind.

That righted her and she immediately regained control.

Without seeing myself, I couldn’t be sure how much of my disguise had truly slipped for others. I had felt it fall, but I had not seen it. Had anyone else noticed? Had Lucian?

His face gave nothing away, as stern and emotionless as ever. If I didn’t know him so well, I might have thought him incapable of feeling any emotion. As I did know him, I knew he was just a master at hiding it. Especially from this distance between us, I would see nothing he did not allow me to see.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I did not mean to intrude. I will wait outside.”

Lucian turned then and, without another word or gesture, stepped out of the breakroom and into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

Lucian’s POV

In the hallway, hidden away from the view of everyone else, I exhaled low and slow. There had been a moment there, I was certain, when I had scented Aria in that room instead of Dr. A.

But that couldn’t be. I had to be imagining things. Yet before I could be certain, the scent of Dr. A had returned and Aria was gone.

“We did not imagine it,” said my wolf. He paced through my mind, impatient and frustrated. He wanted me to return to the room, to pull Dr. A closer and scent her again, but we couldn’t do that. The wolf did not understand that neither Dr. A nor Aria belonged to us. We could not show them such barbaric treatment.

”We have to go back,” my wolf growled. “That vile male attempts to steal our mate.”

“Dr. A is not our mate,” I told him.

“We scented her,” my wolf said. “And her hair started to change.”

Yes, now that he mentioned it… I had thought it a trick of the light at the time, but when Aria’s scent became apparent, Dr. A’s hair seemed to lighten, almost to the same coloration as Aria’s.

It could have been coincidence…

“How many times will you turn your head away rather than see the truth…” my wolf chuffed at me.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I was purposefully turning my head away to keep from seeing the truth. To admit that Dr. A was Aria would be to admit that I truly didn’t know Aria at all, and I wasn’t ready to bear that fact yet.

Aria had some medical training, yes. But to be one of the most renowned Healers of the entire continent? It still seemed too far-fetched, no matter what my wolf thought. No matter what I myself thought I witnessed.

“For an Alpha, you are acting like a coward… Face the truth. Our mate is exceptional, but you couldn’t see it while you still possessed her.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Jasper is in there, proposing. If that is Aria, her true life is about to begin…”

Aria’s POV

When Lucian left the room, I slowly started to recover myself and my disposition. Looking back at Jasper, I found he was still waiting for my answer, even though the hope had dimmed from his eyes and pain replaced it.

“Jasper…”

“I could give you the world, Aria. And I would love you so much better than Lucian could. He had his chance and he squandered it. Why not forget him, and give me a chance? It’s been five years. He’s in your past. Meanwhile, I’ve been working hard to be your future…”

He was making good points, and I so truly wanted to feel the same way about him that he felt for me. If I could forget Lucian and be with Jasper and be happy, I would in a heartbeat.

But… because Jasper was my friend, I would never tie him into a loveless relationship. I knew what it felt like to be ignored. To want someone so badly just for them to not feel the same. It was soul-crushing, tearing me down over years.

Jasper was a bright, shining star. He might have thought he was bettering himself for me, but he wasn’t. All the time, he was really doing it for himself. I had to help him see that.

I had to help him understand that he loved the idea of me more than the actual me. And that if we truly married as he wished, we’d both end up miserable.

My heart ached, wishing things could be different. I didn’t want to hurt him now, even if it meant saving him from continuous hurt later.

But it had to be done.

“Jasper… I’m sorry…”