CHAPTER FOUR

~Evangeline’s POV~

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Kieran said. He gave a little laugh and touched my elbow, gently steering me through the crowd toward the far side of the room where his father stood.

I almost laughed too, but it would’ve come out wrong. A ghost would have been simple. You could walk right through one. This was worse. This was a man who already knew the exact shape of every secret I’d tried to bury.

I kept my face calm. Neutral. I’d had years of practice at that.

Leviathan was over by the tall windows, talking quietly to two men I didn’t know. He wore simple dark clothes, nothing dressy, but somehow he still made everyone else look like they were trying too hard to belong. He wasn’t putting on a show. He never did. The room just seemed to adjust itself around him.

My pulse kicked up. I told it to stop. It didn’t listen.

Kieran kept us moving closer. “Dad.”

Leviathan turned. His eyes landed on Kieran first, then shifted to me. For one long second I felt the full force of his attention, heavy and direct. Then he softened his expression into something polite and distant, the way you’d look at someone you were meeting for the very first time. Courteous. Mildly interested. Nothing more.

He was very good at it. I noticed with a sick twist of admiration.

“You’ve met briefly,” Kieran said, “but let me do this properly. Evangeline, this is my father, Alpha Leviathan Greymark. Dad, Evangeline Nightmoor. My fiancée.”

I held out my hand.

His fingers closed around mine. The warmth of his skin moved up my arm, steady and sure. In that moment I understood why people found him frightening. It wasn’t anger or noise. It was the quiet certainty of a man who had never doubted himself once in his life.

He shook my hand once and let go.

“Miss Nightmoor,” he said, voice even.

“Alpha Greymark,” I replied, matching him.

Kieran rested his hand on my lower back and jumped into a conversation about some border dispute near the eastern territory. I nodded in the right places, smiling when I was supposed to. But inside, every nerve felt stretched tight. From the corner of my eye I watched Kieran standing beside his father. His shoulders sat a little higher than usual. His jaw looked tight. He kept shifting his weight, just slightly. 

Kieran, who could walk into any room and own it without trying, looked like he was bracing for impact.

He was scared of him. Not in some big dramatic way. Just that low, constant hum underneath everything. I filed the observation away out of habit. Old survival instincts died hard.

Leviathan noticed me noticing. His gaze cut to mine for a brief second. There might have been a flicker of amusement there, but his face never quite showed it. Then he turned back to Kieran and I was invisible again.

I lasted eight minutes before I excused myself. I didn’t actually need the bathroom. I just needed space. Needed to step out of that tight orbit where his presence pulled at everything I was trying to ignore.

I locked myself in the small powder room, ran cold water over my wrists, and stared at my reflection. *He’s not going to say anything. He left without a note that night. Men like him don’t go looking for complications. He wants this to disappear as much as you do.*

I only believed about half of it.

When I walked back out, the evening continued on like normal. I made small talk with people whose names I barely remembered. I smiled and said the right things while the minutes dragged like something heavy in my chest. Eventually I found myself near the door, reaching for my coat. Kieran was across the room laughing with a group of his friends, already distracted.

That’s when Leviathan appeared beside me.

He didn’t announce himself. He was simply there, like a change in the weather you feel before you see it.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said.

“I already called a car,” I answered, keeping my eyes on the buttons of my coat.

“Cancel it.”

It wasn’t harsh. It wasn’t even really a command. Just calm certainty. Like saying no had never been a real option.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said quietly.

“Probably not,” he agreed.

Still, he held the door open for me.

I cancelled the car. Even now I’m not sure why. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was the way his voice made resistance feel pointless, like arguing with the rain. I was so tired of pretending. Tired of the ring on my finger. Tired of standing in rooms full of people while feeling only one thing I wasn’t allowed to feel.

His car was black and silent inside. It smelled faintly of cedar and something darker, richer. He pulled out into the street without music. The city lights moved past the windows in soft streaks. Neither of us spoke.

I kept my hands folded tight in my lap and watched the passing buildings. *Just a short ride. Ten minutes and this ends.*

We stopped at a red light. I shifted in my seat to fix the seatbelt that had twisted and caught. At the same moment his hand moved across, reaching to help. Our hands hovered close. Not touching, but near enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his skin in the cool air between us.

We both paused.

The moment stretched longer than it should have. My heart beat loud in my ears.

Then he freed the clip, pulled his hand back, and the light turned green. We drove on. The silence felt thicker now, louder than any words could have been.

He eventually pulled up outside my building and cut the engine. The quiet settled around us.

I reached for the door handle.

“Leave him,” he said, voice low and even.

I went completely still.

“Leave Kieran. End the engagement. Come to me instead.”

I turned to face him. He was staring straight ahead through the windshield, calm as ever. Like what he’d just said was the most reasonable thing in the world.

“I love Kieran,” I told him. My voice came out steadier than I expected. “I’m going to marry him.”

He didn’t argue. Didn’t move. He just sat there in that deep, unshakable stillness that seemed to be part of who he was.

After a long beat he finally turned and looked at me.

“Why did you come to my room that night?”

The question landed heavy in my chest. I felt the ripple spread out before I could stop it.

“That was a mistake,” I said. “I didn’t know who you were. I was upset and I made a bad decision. It never should have happened.” I held his gaze, refusing to look away. “I’m asking you to forget it ever did.”

He watched me for what felt like forever.

“I can forget it,” he said at last.

Some of the tightness in my chest eased.

“If you give me something first.”

It snapped right back, worse than before.

“And what is that?” I asked, even though part of me already knew I wouldn’t like the answer.

His eyes traced my face slowly, carefully. The same focused attention he’d given me that night in the hotel bar, like I was something worth taking the time to truly see.

He leaned back against his door, one arm draped casually along it. Completely relaxed. Like he already knew exactly how this conversation would go.

“Time,” he said simply. “With you. On my terms.”