Semua Bab The Trapped Heiress: Bab 161 - Bab 169

It was soft at first, trembling, tentative, the kiss of a woman who could not quite believe what she had been given. Then Noah’s hand slid into her hair, and he kissed her back, deepening it, slow and deep and sure, as if he meant every second of it to be a declaration. She felt his love in it. She felt years of regret, a thousand apologies, and a promise, and it filled her until she thought she might break.They parted slowly, breathless, foreheads resting together.“Ma-ma,” said a small voice between them. “Da-da! Ma-ma-ma!”They looked down. Kian had been squashed between them throughout, and he had evidently had enough of being ignored. His lower lip trembled, his brows drew together, and his eyes began to fill with tears of great, tragic injustice.“Oh dear,” Noah murmured.Kian opened his mouth and wailed.Laurel burst out laughing; she gathered him up and pulled him against her shoulder, patting his back, while Noah wrapped his arms around them both and shook with silent laught

A month had passed since the council meeting, and since the night that followed it, no one in the Knight family spoke of it.On the morning of the verdict, the courthouse steps were packed with cameras.Reporters stood behind the barricades, holding out microphones and shouting questions, as the black cars pulled up one by one. Police held the crowd at a distance; a helicopter circled overhead. Inside, the great marble hall of the Brighthaven Court of Justice was quiet, its high windows letting in thin grey light, and the air carried the faint, dry smell of old paper.Laurel sat in the second row of the courtroom with her hand in Noah’s.She wore a plain dark suit and no jewellery but her rings. Her hair was pinned simply at her neck. Besides her, Noah sat very straight in a black jacket, his face composed, his fingers closed around hers so firmly that she could feel the pulse in them. On her other side, her father held her mother’s hand. Behind them sat Alpha Abbott, and besides him

It had been the same at the Council.Laurel remembered it vividly; the old elders had sat with hard faces, staring at the man in the gray suit. Abbott had been the first to speak. “She spent twenty years controlling my son’s mind,” he had said. “And you ask us to forgive her?”“I am not asking you to forgive her,” Wyatt had said quietly. “I am asking you not to destroy her.”“Why?”“Because I know what it is to hate them?” He had taken off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I hated the Hamiltons for years; I had reason. They took things from my mother that she never got back. I spent most of my life wanting them to suffer.” His voice had dropped. “And then I got what I wanted, and do you know what I found?”Nobody had answered.“Nothing,” he had said. “Only the same emptiness; it doesn’t fill anything.” He had put his glasses back on. “If I can let go of that hatred, after everything they did to me, then who is anyone here to hold on to it?”The hall had been very quiet.One by one, th

“I felt sick,” Sherry whispered. “I remember, I went to my room and sat on the floor and thought, 'That's not right; you can’t do that to a person.' "I felt like I had swallowed something rotten.” She drew a shaky breath. “But I didn’t stop; I told myself it was how things were, that he was happy, that he wanted to be with me.” Her voice broke. “I told myself so many things.”“And then he married Laurel.”“And then he married Laurel.” Her mouth twisted. “And all of it went black.”“I had never been so jealous in my life,” she said. “I hated her; I hated everything about her. The way she looked at him, the way he started to look back.” Her hands clenched. “I didn’t think; I didn’t think about what it would mean. When Mother and Father began to talk about ruining her family’s company, I said yes, I said yes, Wyatt, and I helped them.”“Why?”“Because I thought…” She stopped. “I thought that if her company went bankrupt, if she lost everything, she would blame him, she would be furious,

Abbott looked from one woman to the other; he looked tired and old and moved.He knew what Lula was doing; he had known her for forty years. He had seen her give up everything, her mate, her pack, and her place in the world so that his marriage would not end and his son would have a father at his side. By any law of the wolves, she was the one who had the right. She was his true mate, and she had stepped aside and kept quiet and let the world believe she had run away.She did it for Noah, he thought. She did it for all of us.Harriet knew it too; she studied Lula’s face for a long time, and then, abruptly, she laughed.“You really are impossible,” she said.“So I have been told.”“You would give away the sun if it made someone else’s evening easier.”“It’s a gift.”Harriet shook her head, still smiling; she reached over and squeezed Lula’s hand. Then, to Abbott’s great surprise, she squeezed his as well.“Fine,” she said. “No divorce, but I am taking the entire floor upstairs.”“You ma