Free Web NovelChapter 409: Chapter 409
Aria’s POV
"I didn’t know," Jennifer said. Her voice was smaller than I had ever heard it. "I knew you had been in prison. I knew it had been difficult. But I didn’t know —" She stopped, collected herself with visible effort. "I am so sorry, Aria."
"You don’t need to apologize. It wasn’t your doing."
"No." She shook her head firmly. "I made a promise to your grandmother when she was alive. I told her I would watch over you. That I would make sure you were cared for." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I failed her. And I failed you."
Something shifted in me at that. The mention of my grandmother hit me somewhere deep in my heart.
"My grandmother knew the kind of man you were trying to pair me with," I said carefully. "She knew his flaws. But she also trusted that love, given time and the right soil, might correct them."
I looked down at Lana, who had fallen into a light doze against the pillows. "She wasn’t wrong about love. She was just wrong about timing."
Jennifer reached across and took my hand. Her grip was firm.
"I want you to know," she said, "that whatever you decide, whether you forgive Nathan or you don’t, whether you go back to him or not, you will always be my family. Do you understand me? You and Lana both."
I looked at her. My throat tightened. fгeewebnovёl.com
"You are always welcome to call me," she continued. "For anything. Company, advice, if Lana needs something and you don’t want to involve Nathan, anything at all."
I nodded. I did not trust my voice immediately.
"Thank you," I said finally. "That means more than you know."
She patted my hand once, then released it and sat back, composing herself with the ease of long practice.
“I am glad we had this talk, now I have to meet Nathan as well.” I said.
Jennifer turned to me, “Aria dear,” she said, her tone steadying, gathering itself. "I imagine you want to tell him directly that you will not be returning to him." frёeωebɳovel.com
I met her eyes. "Yes. He seems to believe there is still a chance between us."
"Don’t," she said. "Let me talk to him."
I considered that.
"He brought me here to repair things," Jennifer said quietly. "The least I can do is be honest with him about why they cannot be repaired in the way he wants. He needs to hear it from someone he won’t argue with."
The corner of my mouth moved. "He argues with everyone."
"He argues with everyone else," she corrected. "He has never really argued with me. Not successfully."
I almost smiled.
"Alright," I said. "I’ll leave it to you."
She nodded once, satisfied. Then she stood and came to me and, to my slight surprise, held my face gently in both her hands the way my own grandmother used to, and looked at me steadily for a long moment.
"You are a remarkable woman, Aria," she said quietly. "I hope you know that."
I held her gaze. "I’m learning to."
She kissed my forehead. Then she stepped back, and went to Lana, and pressed a long, gentle kiss to her sleeping cheek.
"Bring her to see me," she said, at the door. "Wherever I am. Promise me that."
"I promise," I said.
She left.
I stood in the room for a moment, breathing.
Then I gathered my daughter and my bag and walked out of Crescent Manor without looking back.
Nathan’s POV
The breakfast table was set beautifully, because Grandmother always insisted on that, even when the mood in the room was anything but beautiful.
I sat across from her, fork in hand, eating without tasting anything. My body felt like something that had been taken apart and put back together slightly wrong.
The IV had been removed that morning, but the ache behind my sternum had nothing to do with fainting and everything to do with things I had no remedy for.
"You look terrible," Grandmother said pleasantly, sipping her tea.
"Thank you, Grandma."
"How do you feel?"
"Better," I said. Which was true, physically. The rest of it was a different matter.
She set her cup down with a delicate click. "Good. Because I need to talk to you about something."
I looked up. Her expression told me everything I needed to know before she said a word.
"It is about Aria, isn’t it?" I asked.
"Yes, it is," she confirmed.
I set my fork down. "Was she angry last night when she left?."
"She didn’t leave last night Nathan. She slept over and left this morning."
Something in my chest clenched. "She left? Why didn’t she wait, she could have at least stayed for breakfast —"
"Nathan."
The word was quiet. The kind of quiet that stopped movement.
I looked at my grandmother. Really looked at her. And I saw something I had not expected. Her eyes were a bit red. Not the irritated red of sleeplessness. The specific, precise red of someone who had been crying and had washed their face afterward and thought no one would notice.
My wolf went still inside me.
"Grandma," I said slowly. "What happened?"
She folded her hands on the table. A gesture I knew. She used it when she was about to deliver something difficult because she did not believe in softening things so much that the truth got lost.
"I spoke with Aria this morning," she said. "I wanted to see if there was a chance that both of you could get back together."
My jaw tightened. "And?"
"And she told me everything that happened." She held my gaze. "About the morning the enforcers came. About kneeling on the floor and grabbing your arm and begging you to believe her."
I looked away.
"About the silver chains," she continued, her voice steady, pressing each word in like a thumb against a bruise. "About what happened when Lana was born."
I said nothing.
I could not say anything.
"Nathan." Her voice broke, just slightly, on my name. "She gave birth to your daughter on a concrete floor. Alone, with no one."
The table blurred. I pressed my fist to my mouth.
"I knew it was bad," I said. My voice came out wrecked. "I knew. She told me."
"Knowing and understanding are different things," grandma said. "Aria went through a whole lot because of you." Her voice wavered. "She has made peace with it. That is the most heartbreaking part. She doesn’t want you in her life anymore, Nathan."
