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Chapter Nine: The Dinner
Last Updated:
2026-01-29 15:50:42
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CRAVING THE WRONG BLACKTHORNE BROTHER 72
I stood in the study for exactly one minute after the door closed.I counted it. Sixty seconds with Levi’s blood on the floor and the faint sound of string music still drifting up from below, one minute to let it move through me, and then I had to go.Then I went after Nate.He wasn’t in our room. Not in the corridor outside it, not in the smaller sitting room he sometimes used when he needed to think without being interrupted. I moved through the east wing quickly, heels in my hand because I couldn’t run in them, the emerald dress dragging slightly at the hem.I found him on the upper balcony.He was standing at the railing with his back to the door, still in his dinner jacket, both hands braced against the stone. Below us the grounds were lit softly, the estate laid out in its quiet perfection. He must have heard me come through the door but he didn’t turn around.“I told you I’d deal with you later,” he said.“I know.” I stopped a few feet behind him. “I can’t wait until later.”“E
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Nobody answered.How long have you been sleeping with my wife. The words were still in the room, filling every corner of it, and the silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.Levi straightened from the doorframe slowly. His hand dropped from his jaw. The mark from Nate’s fist was already darkening, a deep red that would be purple by morning, and he looked at his brother with a steadiness that I recognized, the steadiness of a man who had decided to absorb whatever comes next.“It’s not what you think,” Levi said.“Don’t.” Nate’s voice was very soft. “Don’t insult me.”“Nate—”“I said don’t.”The softness was the warning. I knew that now, had learned it over months of living with this man, reading the register of his voice the way you learn to read weather. The louder he was, the more manageable. The softer, the more dangerous. And right now his voice was barely above a murmur, which meant we were standing at the edge of something I had never seen before.“It was me
CRAVING THE WRONG BLACKTHORNE BROTHER 70
Nobody answered.How long have you been sleeping with my wife. The words were still in the room, filling every corner of it, and the silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.Levi straightened from the doorframe slowly. His hand dropped from his jaw. The mark from Nate’s fist was already darkening, a deep red that would be purple by morning, and he looked at his brother with a steadiness that I recognized, the steadiness of a man who had decided to absorb whatever comes next.“It’s not what you think,” Levi said.“Don’t.” Nate’s voice was very soft. “Don’t insult me.”“Nate—”“I said don’t.”The softness was the warning. I knew that now, had learned it over months of living with this man, reading the register of his voice the way you learn to read weather. The louder he was, the more manageable. The softer, the more dangerous. And right now his voice was barely above a murmur, which meant we were standing at the edge of something I had never seen before.“It was me
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The evening moved with the particular cruelty of things you want to be over.Nate kept me at his side through all of it. Introductions, small talk, the careful navigation of pack politics dressed up in evening wear. His hand never left me. My waist, my back, the curve of my hip. Small, constant touches that read to everyone watching as affection and read to me as something more deliberate. A reminder. A claim being restated for an audience that included his brother.Levi circulated the room at a careful distance. He was good at it. Gracious with the pack members who came to congratulate him on his recovery, composed with the allied alphas who wanted to assess him, easy in the way of someone who had grown up in these rooms and knew how to perform without appearing to. Every time I found him across the crowd he was looking somewhere else. Every time I looked away I felt his eyes find me.I was going to lose my mind before the first course was served.Dinner, when it came, was exquisite
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The ballroom had been transformed.Crystal chandeliers threw prismatic light across white tablecloths and gold-rimmed china. Flower arrangements — roses and lilies and something purple I couldn’t name — sweetened the air until the perfume was almost too much. A string quartet played in the corner, their music soft and cultivated and completely at odds with the state of my nerves.Everything was perfect.Exactly as Nate had requested.I stood at the entrance in the emerald gown I’d chosen deliberately, smoothing the fabric with hands that weren’t entirely steady. The same green as the dress from our first real date. The one that had started everything shifting between us, back when shifting felt like possibility rather than catastrophe.I’d chosen it as a message. I chose you. I’m choosing you.Even if my body still carried the memory of choosing someone else two days ago.“Mrs. Blackthorne?” One of the staff appeared at my elbow. “The guests are beginning to arrive. Should we open the
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By midday, Levi had been moved to a private recovery room on the third floor.It was Dr. Hayes’s idea — a more comfortable space now that the crisis had passed, somewhere quieter and less clinical. A king-sized bed, a sitting area, thick curtains that blocked the afternoon glare. Privacy enough that she only checked in every few hours.I told myself I was helping coordinate the move out of practicality. Out of efficiency. Because someone had to make sure the transition went smoothly, and I happened to be there.I was not counting the minutes.I was not thinking about how Nate’s car had cleared the estate gates two hours ago.“You don’t have to hover,” Levi said from the bed. His voice had continued its steady recovery — stronger now, almost normal, threaded through with dry amusement. “I’m not going to collapse the moment you turn your back.”“You almost died three days ago,” I said. “Forgive me for being cautious.”I was arranging flowers. There were already three bouquets in the roo
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