After She's Terminal The Alpha Regrets (Elaine and Lucas) novel Chapter 32

Chapter 32

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“This was never about a tantrum, Lucas. If you seriously can’t get it through your head, even after all this time, why I’m leaving you, then it’s not worth trying to explain anymore.” She didn’t know how much clearer she could be.

She couldn’t live anymore like she had been with him.

“You said it yourself. You don’t care.”

That made Lucas pause. He exhaled slowly. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“That almost makes it worse. I’m glad I heard it. Finally gave me some closure after all these years.’

Lucas gritted his teeth. “This isn’t about that. You want your money back, move back in with me. Come back home. Return to your duties, and I will forget all this ever happened. Things can go back to how they were.”

Elaine wanted to believe that this was coming from a sincere place. That perhaps Lucas was finally realizing just how much she did for him. Yet she couldn’t. He’d just proved to her that he couldn’t. (2)

The only thing that made her hesitate was the foundation. She needed the capital somehow. Just to get it started.

But she couldn’t go crawling back to Lucas for that reason alone. Not when she still remembers how he’d marked Ayla in this very house. Right in front of her. She’d find the money another way.

No amount of it would make her return to him.

“No,” Elaine said. “I’m not sorry for leaving. I’m not sorry for asking for a divorce. And I’m not staying.”

She turned on her heel and walked back toward the front door. Lucas watched her go with a critical eye.

“Before you leave, I have something of yours. Well, it was supposed to be yours.”

Elaine ignored him. She reached for the door.

“Your father dropped by earlier to give it to me. How thoughtful. Perhaps he thought it was time you had it.”

Her hand hovered above the handle. A tremor ran through her body, and her breath hitched. It couldn’t be. Her father had hidden them all somewhere she’d spent countless days searching for but never found.

Lucas couldn’t have any of it.

Yet…

“It was your mother’s.”

Elaine looked over her shoulder.

Sure enough, in Lucas’ hand, outstretched towards her, was a necklace. A delicate chain with a locket at the end.

Elaine remembered that locket. Her mother used to wear it every day, with a picture of both of them in it. She used to say it was so she could keep Elaine close to her heart. Aways. It was a memory so vivid in her mind. One of the few she could even remember of her mother now. (2

She turned and walked back toward Lucas.

Her stride lengthened. Steps quickened. Her body seemed to move on her own from the door to Lucas, her eyes glued to the locket the entire time. She reached out for it…

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Chapter 32

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