CHAPTER 52: FRAGILE ALIBIS

Eva’s POV

​Genevieve’s sharp voice cut through the dusk like a shattered blade, sending a cold, horrifying panic straight through my veins.

​I immediately scrambled away from Leo, pushing myself off the grass and stumbling to my feet. Leo stood up right beside me, smoothing down his coat with a hasty, awkward flick of his hands. The air between the three of us turned suffocatingly tense.

​Genevieve took a slow step closer, her hands placed on her hips, her expression a mix of sheer disbelief and growing peevishness. "That... is your brother's wife, My Lord," she spat, her eyes darting between Leo and me. "Have you both completely lost your senses?!"

​"No—no! That is not what happened at all!" I stammered, my voice trembling as heat rushed into my cheeks. "I tripped on the grass, and—and we just fell! It was an accident!"

​Genevieve raised a single, cynical eyebrow, her look making it abundantly clear that she didn't believe a word of my pathetic lie.

​Oh God.

​I couldn't even bring myself to look Leo in the eye. Embarrassment washed over me in violent waves. What just happened?! What on earth is wrong with me?! I was not that kind of woman. Where were my manners? I had almost kissed my husband's brother right in the open garden!

​"If you will excuse me," I muttered under my breath, unable to face Leo for another second.

​Without waiting for his reply, I turned on my heel and hurried down the stone path after Genevieve, my heart hammering against my ribs. I had to stop her. If word of this got out, the scandal of the future Duchess having a secret affair with the Duke’s brother would completely destroy everything.

​"Genevieve, please!" I called out, catching up to her just as she pushed through the grand glass doors leading back into the manor. "Please... just act like you didn't see that. I am begging you."

​Genevieve stopped in the quiet hallway, turning around to face me. Her gaze was analytical, sharp, and entirely too observant.

​"You know, everyone in this house assumed you would marry Leo," Genevieve said softly, folding her arms over her chest. "The staff made it no secret that you were always closer to him. And then, out of nowhere, you randomly married Lucian instead. Now I walk outside and find you and Leo practically breathless in the garden."

​She took a step closer, her eyes narrowing. "Why did Leo stand by and let you marry Lucian? Why did you marry Lucian if you had feelings for Leo all along?"

​My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. She was connecting the dots—guessing at a truth that was far too close to our hidden reality. I could not let her start prying into the marriage contract. If the truth about our sham agreement spilled out, everything would be ruined.

​"It is not like that at all!" I insisted desperately, forcing absolute conviction into my voice. "There is nothing between Leo and me. Nothing! I... I am in love with my husband. I am in love with Lucian."

​Genevieve stared at me, a bitter, scoffing laugh escaping her lips. "I am not a fool, Eva."

​"Please, Genevieve, believe me!" I pleaded, stepping into her space, my hands clasped together. "Just promise me you won't tell anyone what you saw out there. I swear to you, I will keep my distance from him. Just... please promise me."

​Genevieve studied my terrified face for a long, heavy moment. The silence hung between us like a suspended anvil, until finally, she let out a weary sigh.

​"I promise," Genevieve murmured quietly. "I won't tell anyone."

​A long, shuddering breath I hadn't realized I was holding escaped my chest. I nodded in silent gratitude, leaning against the cold stone wall as Genevieve turned and walked away—leaving me alone with the terrifying knowledge of just how close I had come to burning my entire world to the ground.

Lucian’s POV

​I paced the length of my bedchamber, a cold sweat breaking across my skin. The sudden, unnatural weakness had been creeping up on me all evening, heavy and suffocating. The white tablets from the physician weren't holding it back anymore, and the throbbing headache behind my eyes brought a surging wave of frustration and sudden, blinding stress.

​My body felt wrong—fragile in a way that echoed a forgotten period of my childhood. I remembered faint, terrifying moments as a boy when a sudden burst of fear or emotion would cause my hands to go limp or my knees to give out, only for the adults to dismiss it as passing clumsiness. But this felt far worse.

​I poured a glass of water from the crystal carafe, my hands shaking so violently that the ice clinked loudly against the rim.

​As I lifted the glass to my lips, a dark, heavy knot of unsaid trauma tightened in my chest. A phantom memory from my youth—a piece of my past so deeply buried and agonizingly terrifying that I had tried for years to erase it—wrenched itself to the surface.

​Clang.

​The glass slipped from my limp fingers, shattering into a dozen pieces across the hardwood floor.

​I tried to step back, but my knees instantly buckled. A sudden, terrifying wave of complete paralysis washed over me as my muscle tone vanished entirely. I collapsed onto the cold wood, completely unable to move. My mouth remained frozen mid-gasp, my jaw went slack, and my eyelids drooped heavily over my vision.

​I couldn't lift an arm, turn my head, or utter a single word. My body was a completely locked-in prison, yet my mind remained terrifyingly, vividly awake.

​And then, the trance took hold.

​My physical surroundings faded, replaced by the crushing weight of a memory replaying before my eyes. In the darkness of my mind, the silhouette of a woman loomed over me, her figure looming like a shadow from my past.

​"Stop... please, leave me alone," my younger self's voice echoed back to me, desperate and trembling. "Please... don't touch me! Stop!"

​I lay trapped on the floor, my eyes wide and unblinking, helpless as one of the most traumatizing moments of my life replayed over and over and over again in an endless, agonizing loop.