Free Web NovelChapter 83: Chapter 83 To host another banquet
_Author’s POV_
Virella watched the full clip twice.
She didn’t plan to watch it the second time. Her finger just didn’t move to turn it off when it ended and the channel looped it back to the beginning and she sat there on the couch and watched Kaelen walk into the Ashthorne banquet hall with that expression on his face, the one she recognized, the one she had been trying to explain away for years, and she let herself see it clearly this time without the protective layer of not knowing.
He sat down on the opposite end of the couch when he came in and she didn’t move away from him or even move toward him.
She said what she needed to say. He received it with the stillness of someone who wasn’t going to defend himself, which was the first sign all evening that he had arrived at something honest.
Then she got up and went to get the medical kit.
She had always been this way. She genuinely loved Kaelen. At first, she didn’t, but as time progressed, she fell for the bastard.
She knew it about herself and she didn’t have a clean explanation for it. She could be furious and heartbroken and completely clear-eyed about exactly what had been done to her and she would still, in the end, see the split lip and the bruised eye and reach for the antiseptic. It wasn’t a weakness exactly. It was just the way her care operated, it didn’t have an off switch even when the person it was directed at had not earned it.
She cleaned the cut above his eye without speaking, despite knowing that Shade would heal the cut in no time.
He sat still and let her and when she pressed harder than was strictly necessary on one of the bruised areas he absorbed it without complaint, which she thought was probably the appropriate response given the circumstances.
"I’m sorry," he finally blurted out.
She pressed the antiseptic cloth against his jaw and said nothing.
"I know that’s not enough," he said. "I know what I did tonight. I know what I’ve been doing." He was looking at his hands while she worked. "I convinced myself for so long that what I felt was real and that it justified things that it didn’t justify. And I kept choosing that story over the actual person in front of me."
Virella smoothed a bandage into place with more precision than it required.
"You lost a child," he said. "Our child. And I left you to go chase something that was already gone." He stopped. "I don’t have a defense for that. I don’t have an explanation that makes it anything other than what it was."
She stepped back and put the cloth back in the kit and closed it.
She looked at him.
"I’m not leaving," she said. "I want you to know that I’ve thought about it and I’m not leaving. But I need you to understand something." She sat down, not close but not far either. "I am not a placeholder. I am not the person you settled for while you were getting over someone else. I am your wife now, and soon to be Luna, and I lost your child and if you ever, one more time, treat me like I am less important than a woman who has moved on and doesn’t want you back......" She stopped. "I won’t forgive it again. And I’ll make you pay dearly.”
He looked at her, really looked.
"I know," he said.
"Say it properly."
He met her eyes. "You are not a placeholder. You are not less. You are my wife and I failed you and I’m not going to do it again."
The room was quiet for a moment.
"I mean it this time," he said.
She looked at him for a long time, her thoughts running wild now. Something in her finally saw this as a window to ask for something in return.
Then she nodded.
“If you want full forgiveness, then make it official. Rowena is gone. Make me the new Luna of Moonreign. I deserve that since we’re married now.”
Kaelen blinked, his heart hurting at the part of Virella saying Rowena was gone.
Was he really not ever getting her back?
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Across the city, the Ashthorne mansion had settled into the quiet that follows an eventful evening.
The guests were gone. The flowers would be dealt with in the morning. Kasper had sent the staff to bed and was doing a final walkthrough of the property with two of the Ashthorne guards.
Nana Seraphine was still there.
She was sitting in the main sitting room with a cup of tea that had gone cold, looking at nothing particular, with the expression of a woman reorganizing her approach to a problem that had not been solved the way she intended.
Rowena sat across from her.
"The banquet didn’t go the way you planned," Rowena said.
"No," Nana Seraphine agreed begrudgingly. "It did not. Thanks to your foolish ex husband.”
A short silence passed, Rowena didn’t know how to reply to that.
"I’m not giving up, though." Nana Seraphine added.
"I know," Rowena already knew her Nana would never give up easily.
“The woman is relentless.” Kyra chuckled.
"There are other families. Other young men. The Ashwell boy was very well-mannered. And that Frey family has excellent standing." She picked up the cold tea, took a sip and set it back down. "We can arrange something smaller and more private. Less opportunity for uninvited guests. We won’t invite the media.”
Rowena looked at her grandmother with a combination of exasperation and genuine love that Nana Seraphine consistently produced in her.
"Nana," she said.
"Don’t Nana me," Seraphine said. "You need someone. I’m not going to stop believing that because one evening was disrupted."
Rowena said nothing to that.
She knew nothing would change Seraphine’s mind once it was made up.
"We can discuss it when I’m back," she said carefully.
Nana Seraphine looked at her sharply. "Back from where?"
"I have something to attend to," Rowena said. "A few days. And when I return we can sit down properly and talk about what you have in mind."
Nana Seraphine studied her granddaughter’s face with attention.
"You’re not telling me everything," she said.
"I’m telling you what I can right now," Rowena said.
Another silence passed.
“If you want me to entertain anyone at the next banquet, then don’t ask too many questions and just allow me do my thing for now.” Rowena said calmly.
"Fine," Nana Seraphine finally agreed. "But when you come back, we sit down properly. No disappearing. No managing me from a distance."
"When I come back," Rowena nodded. "I promise."
Nana Seraphine picked up her cold tea and drank it all.
