All Chapters of I Became The Surrogate For A Divorced Alpha and Luna: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

LUCIENThat night, I can't sleep.The guest room is perfectly adequate, so it isn't the cause of my sleeplessness. It's just that Evelyn's laughter rumbles through the sound.It's low from the distance, more a rumble than a sound. But I hear it. It's light sometimes, cute. Then it breaks into something freer.I press a pillow against my face to shut it out. But it doesn't work. I sit up then, listening in closely. It goes on, rising and falling, a voice I've never heard in this house.By midnight, it still hasn't stopped. Now she's talking too, a murmur threaded between the laughs.I can't make out the words. I only hear the rise and fall of it, intimate and unguarded, and something small and ugly crawls through me.Who is she talking to?I throw back the covers and pull on a shirt. I'm halfway down the hall, a litany of complaints already at the tip of my tongue.It's almost one in the morning. Don't you know you need to sleep? You're not supposed to be...I stop when she comes into

Lucien doesn't seem angry that I'm in his study, or that I'm holding his notebook. He simply takes it from my hands and nothing else.Then he walks out of the room.I stand in the study a moment longer, my face burning hot. Then I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding.When did he even come back?Or why? It's literally just three in the afternoon.I rest my back against the table, not sure how I'll face him.Everything else gets easier to my surprise, and that's almost worse.On Friday, I stop at the hallway mirror in the green dress and tug at the fabric over my hips.I've barely seen any progress and I'm starting to wonder if skipping the late-night snacks is even worth it."I look like a sofa," I say lightly."Don't."His voice makes me jump.He's moving like a ghost these days. And why is he suddenly everywhere?He stands behind me, with his arms crossed. And his face, it's a mask of fury."Don't say that about yourself," he adds, taking a step forward. "You loo

Lucien’s mouth lands on mine. And the first touch is so careful that I barely feel it. Then he pulls away slightly and the kiss ends too fast.He lingers close, a hair’s breadth away, waiting. My mind races as I ponder how to react.‘This is a bad idea,’ I think.And I know it. I know it with great clarity because I know whose child I'm also carrying. I know what this might cost.But my mind loses against my body and I close the space between us. Then the care is gone.He kisses me like a man who is starving. Then he nips on my bottom lip, and licks at the seam of my mouth, making my breath hitch. One hand slides into my hair and the other finds my waist and draws me as close as the curve between us allows.A small, surprised sound escapes me, and he swallows it.Oh.It's the only thought I can hold. Nobody has ever kissed me like this before. Not like I was something to savor.With Thomas, he only ever took from me. This man — he takes and gives at once, and the difference runs throu

I don't answer at first. I stay where I am, and wait for him to give up and leave.He doesn't."Evelyn." His voice comes low through the door, quieter than I've ever heard it. "I know you're awake. Please talk to me."I don't answer.He sighs deeply then. "Mrs Greene said you haven't eaten.""I'm not hungry," I say, my words sharper than I intend."I know that."My lips press together. His scent thickens from under the door, and traitorously, my body responds, a slow heat unfurling low in my belly.I hate how obedient it is, how it knows exactly who is standing on the other side."You've been avoiding me," he says.My breath catches. "I've been… tired.""Evelyn —"He stops and I close my eyes, feeling strangely afraid. Neither of us speaks for a long moment, and that makes my thoughts loud.I hear the faint creak of the floorboard as he shifts his weight, and then something that sounds like his forehead resting against the door."If I crossed a line," he says, "I'm sorry."My breath c

Over the next few days, Lucien starts taking care of me in earnest.He doesn’t announce it. He does it the way he does everything, quietly and without a word, until I notice the pattern.The first morning, there’s flowers on my nightstand. One flower in a plain glass of water, the white petals still beaded with dew. I stand there and stare at it.Not really sure what it means or who put it there. The next morning there’s another.A long, curved pillow appears in my bed, shaped to hold my back and my knees at once. A heated rice pack is left on the arm of the couch every evening, already warm.Then he starts coming home by six now. Every single day, without exception. He eats dinner across from me and in the evenings, he walks with me in the garden at dusk.One Thursday, when we’re alone, he does something that surprises me. He kneels on the sitting room rug, takes my swollen feet in his hands, and works warm oil into them with such fierce concentration. I don’t protest. I’m too surpri