Todos os capítulos de The Trapped Heiress: Capítulo 111 - Capítulo 120

“I remember.” Laurel pressed her hand to her mouth. “She raised her hand to her forehead; she was shaking and crying and saying it hurt. And I heard them, Aunt Lula, the bells; they chimed, and right then Noah’s face went blank.”Silence—it lasted a bit longer.Then Alpha Abbott made a sound Laurel had never heard from a man’s throat, it was low and raw, almost like groan, and it seemed to come from somewhere far deeper than his chest. His wolf roared.“What are you saying?” His voice was barely audible. “That for twenty years, my son has been under a spell? That the Hamiltons…"“I am saying it very clearly.” Lula’s gaze didn’t waver. “Someone has been controlling Noah since he was eight years old, and the one holding the bells is Sherry Hamilton.”Alpha Abbott staggered back a step and sat down heavily in his chair.For a moment he said nothing at all; he stared at the desk with an empty, stunned expression, as though someone had pulled the floor from beneath him, then, slowly, his

“After you left, I watched him.” His voice was soft. “I watched Noah fall apart; I watched him stop sleeping, stop eating, and throw himself into building that house. I saw the changes in him. And I thought, Maybe, maybe he is finally learning.” He drew back and looked at her, his thumbs brushing her tears. “So I dropped the talk of divorce, I stopped pushing, and I let you make your own choice.”Laurel stared at him through a blur.“And now the two of you are trying again,” Richard said, and he smiled. “On your own terms, I couldn’t be prouder of you, Lau. You have no idea.”The sob that broke from her was almost a laugh; she buried her face in his chest, shaking from head to foot, and cried like a child.On the other side of the room, Alpha Abbott watched them with a hand pressed over his mouth. His eyes were red-rimmed, but he was smiling.Besides him, Lula sat very still; she dabbed at one corner with a knuckle, and when Abbott glanced at her, she scowled and looked away.“Don’t,”

The word came out flat.“It isn’t possible,” he said. “I would know; if someone had put a spell on me, I would have felt it. I would have…” He stopped; his voice was strangely steady. “I am an Alpha. I would know.”“Would you?” Lula said gently.He turned his head and looked at her.“It was cast when you were eight. Before you had any idea what you were or what it meant to be an Alpha, you grew up with it. It became part of the way you thought.” She leaned forward. “If you had always had a weight on your shoulders, Noah, would you ever feel it? Or would you only know that you were tired?”He stared at her.“When you saw Sherry bleed at the club,” she said, “what did you feel?”His lips parted.“Think carefully about what you told yourself afterward and what you felt.”“I…” He stopped his eyes from unfocusing. “I felt… nothing; it was blank, like walking through water. I couldn’t think. I only knew I had to go to her.”“And when Alpha Hamilton asked you to stay with her in the ward?”“

“Good.”“But I won’t be alone with her.”“That’s the second part.” Lula turned to Laurel. “You must go with him everywhere, every visit, every dinner, every phone call, if you can manage it and if it’s related to Sherry Hamilton. If Sherry has any chance to ring those bells while he is alone, then you know what will happen.”“She won’t,” Laurel said.Her voice was calm, and absolutely, she turned to her husband and met his eyes.“I will be there,” she said. “Every time we visit, Sherry, I will stay so close you will be sick of me.”“I could never be sick of you.”“Give it a month.”His mouth twitched. “You will be like a glue.”“Exactly like glue.” She smiled. “A very patient, very stubborn, very watchful glue.”He laughed, a short, startled sound, and the tension in the room eased by a degree.Across the table, Richard coughed, and Alpha Abbott pretended to be very busy with a stack of papers."And you?” Noah turned to Lula. “What will you do?”She didn’t answer at once; she sat qui

"You know you do.”He smiled, slow and soft. He lifted a hand and tucked a loose curl behind her ear, and his thumb lingered at her jaw.“Then let’s leave the others to their own business,” he murmured, “and attend to ours.”“I thought you would never ask.”After a few hours, when the lamp had burned low and the house was perfectly quiet, Laurel lay awake with her head on his shoulder and watched the shadows move across the ceiling.His breathing was slow and even; one arm was draped across her waist, heavy and warm, as though he had fallen asleep holding on.She thought about the day, about a boy in a ditch unconscious, with a blank mind. About a father who had hidden a photograph in a drawer for twenty years. About a woman in a green shawl who had run from a love she couldn’t have and was only now beginning to turn around.Let the adults decide their lives, she had said, and let us decide ours.At the McKinley estate , a small boy slept in the nursery, with his grandparents watching