Chapter 145
But then something shifted.
I felt it in the way she started fidgeting. How she kept glancing at me, then at the horizon, then back again. Her laughter grew tighter, her smiles didn’t quite reach her eyes.
It was like she was waiting for something.
And whatever it was… I wasn’t giving it to her.
By the time we began our slow descent, her silence had returned in full force.
She didn’t say another word as the balloon dropped gently toward the meadow. When we landed, she stepped out of the basket and smoothed her dress like it had personally offended her. Her lips were pressed into a line so sharp It looked carved.
“Didn’t y
t you enjoy it?” I asked quietly, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek.
“It was fine,” she said, her voice flat. “Thank you.”
She walked ahead to the car.-
And I stood there in the field, alone, trying to figure out what the hell I’d missed.
CASSANDRA
I was supposed to be proposed to..
The moment I saw the balloon, I knew. This was it. A grand gesture.
Romantic. Personal. The kind of thing you tell the press about years later. He took me in a hot air balloon. I said yes above the clouds.
It was perfect.
He remembered what I said. About how I’d always wanted to try one. That I dreamed of floating above the earth with the man I loved.
I had told him that story all those years ago for a reason–because I was planting a seed. Because I wanted him to remember. Because I thought if he cared about me even a little, he’d understand what I meant.
And when he booked this trip… I thought maybe he had.
Especially after I told him what I thought he’d want to hear. That I could still have children. That my body was strong. That this wasn’t the end.
I thought I saw something shift in him. Maybe that hope wasn’t just mine.
But I was wrong.
There was no ring
No speech.
No kneeling,
Just silence and cider and a beautiful view.
Chapter 145
The whole time we floated, 1 kept waiting. I watched him so closely I gave myself a headache.
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Evky time he reached into his coat pocket, I held my breath Every time he adjusted his stance, I waited for him to turn to me and say something that would change my life.
But I
But he didn’t.
He just stood there, holding the railing, acting like this was just a nice thing to do for a grieving woman.
Just a gesture.
Like I was a charity case.
By the time the balloon started drifting back down, I knew. He hadn’t planned anything. He wasn’t thinking about the future. Not with me. He was still stuck in the past. Still stuck on her.
And suddenly, I wanted to scream.
I walked ahead of him toward the car, trying not to cry. If I cried, he’d think it was about the ‘baby‘ About the hormones. About my delicate emotional state.
He wouldn’t understand that this was a deeper kind of grief Not for the child I had pretended to lose but for the life I would never get back.
I had stood by him for years. I had shaped myself into what a Luna was supposed to be. Elegant. Polished. Patient. Willing to wait. Willing to forgive. Willing to keep smiling even when I was being pushed aside like garbage.
And then she came back.
The p
princess. The ghost. The mate.
She came back from the dead with a child and a crown, and now I was just the woman everyone pitied.
The woman who lost.
I sat in the passenger seat the whole drive back, silent, my fingers digging into the seam of the seat.
I wasn’t done.
I still had cards to play.
Let him think I was broken. Let him think I was drifting.
But if Derek thought this was over–if Elena thought she had won–then she had another think com
I would make her pay.
If it was the last thing I ever did… I’d ruin her.
Chester 140
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Chapter 146
ELENA
