Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 235

Chapter 235

“Lola,” he said, that smooth museum-voice trying to curate reality. “At last.”

She smiled as if she’d found exactly what she ordered.

“Oh, sweet Lucy. There you are.”

A small catch in his chest. He ironed it flat. “Lucian.”

“Mmh. That’s what you told me last time.”

“You remember.”

“How many field trips come with a sales pitch?” She tilted her head. “Marble, perfume, shoes squeaking, a man saying my name like he’d already stamped it.”

He didn’t look at the mirror; he looked at her. “You were nine.”

“And you were what practicing being your father?” she said. “You did the tour well. You just didn’t have the authority yet.”

A beat. He accepted the hit and decided not to bleed.

“My father did the contracts,” he said mildly. “I run the house now.”

“Condolences on the promotion,” she said. “He pass you the key or just the habit?”

He circled once. Not a shark too self-aware for that. A docent. He kept his hands politely off the straps, as if not touching her were the same as restraint.

“Let’s be clear,” he said. “You were purchased. The Academy secured your placement, your education, your safety. You ran.”

“Correction,” she said, friendly as weather. “A man bought a child. Turns out, I don’t stay where I’m put.”

His eyes flicked over her like a scanner reading damaged property. “Fifteen years. Then you walk in.”

“I hate being hunted,” she said. “So I came to collect the hounds.”

“You think that’s what we are?”

“I think you’re wearing deodorant over rot,” she said. “Lucy, this place reeks of repentance.” Her eyes swept the corners. “You scrub the floors like guilt’s contagious.”

His mouth almost curved. It didn’t. “You belong to me.”

“Darling,” she said, “you never got that far.”

He stepped closer, the cologne was eucalyptus and money. “We are reclaiming an asset.”

“You hide behind procedure,” she said. “Dress cruelty up in policy, then invoice the cleanup.”

Her smile was small and mean. “Call it whatever you want, Lucy it still bleeds.”

He blinked once, slow.

There it is, that flicker when the ego feels air.

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