Owned By The Possessive Alpha, Bounded To My Mate novel Chapter 63

Chapter 63

LYRA

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The house was supposed to be empty.

That was what I needed-empty rooms, silence, the space to think without anyone looking at me with the particular expression that had been following me for two weeks. The expression that said you did this without anyone having to say it out loud.

Instead I came through the front door and heard voices.

My parents’ voices, which meant the study, which meant I could have turned around and gone back out and they wouldn’t have known I was home. I should have done that. I knew I should have done that approximately three seconds before I didn’t do it and walked toward the study instead.

The door was open.

My mother saw me first. Her expression did the thing it had been doing lately-cycling through several feelings before settling on the one she’d decided was most useful, which today was the particular exhausted disappointment of a woman who had run out of softer versions of what she wanted to say.

My father turned..

He looked older than he had a month ago. I noticed this the way I noticed things I didn’t want to notice-briefly, then set aside, because looking at it directly required a conversation with myself I wasn’t ready for.

“Lyra,” my mother said.

“I just got home,” I said. “I’m tired.”

“Sit down,” my father said.

His voice had the quality it had when he had decided that something was going to be said and the only variable was how long it took to get there. I sat, because arguing with that voice was a different kind of exhausting and I’d already been exhausted before I

walked in.

My mother sat across from me. My father remained standing, which he did when he wanted the height of the thing to communicate something.

“We’ve been discussing what happens next,” my mother said.

“With what?”

“With you,” she said. “With this situation. With everything that has been accumulating since-”

“Since Denise decided to-”

“Since you made a misrepresentation claim at the Grand Aldric,” my father said, with the flat precision of someone cutting to the factual version because the emotional version was taking too long. “In front of witnesses. Against the Nightshade family’s invitation. On record.”

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Chapter 63

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+ said nothing.

“The Kellerman deat,” he said. “Do you know what’s happened with it?”

“I’ve been dealing with-”

“Paused,” he said. “Kellerman’s office sent word this week. They’re reassessing.” He looked at me with the steady eyes that had always been the most difficult version of his attention to receive. “The Nightshade Group has Kellerman’s secondary business through three subsidiaries. When Kellerman reassesses an arrangement connected to the Blackwood name, and the reason for the reassessment is a public incident involving the Blackwood heir’s sister-” He stopped. Let the sentence complete itself.

“The Harmon contract,” my mother said quietly. “Also paused. Pending review.”

I looked at her.

“Your brother has been to Tokyo and back,” she said. “He came home and went directly to the council meeting. He’s been managing the investor situation that your-that came up before Tokyo. He is doing all of this without once, to my knowledge, coming home and saying what he could say about the reason for it.”

‘Dante doesn’t blame me for-”

‘Dante is protecting you,” my father said. “As he has always protected you. And the cost of that protection is currently being paid by this family, by the company, and by your brother’s time and energy and reputation.” He looked at me with the expression I had been avoiding for two weeks. “And you are not in this room feeling remorseful. That is the thing I cannot-” He stopped. Collected nimself. “That is the thing I find most difficult.”

The study was quiet.

looked at my hands,

‘We have spoken to the Marchetti family,” my mother said, into the quiet.

looked up.

‘Fredo Marchetti’s eldest son, Marco, is-”

‘No,” I said.

“Lyra-”

“No.” I kept my voice controlled because losing control of it would hand them something to respond to rather than the substance. “I am not marrying Marco Marchetti because it’s, convenient for managing a situation that–”

“You will go to their estate in Verona,” my father said. “The engagement doesn’t have to be announced immediately. But you will go, and you will be away from this city, and the distance will allow the current situation to settle without your presence making it worse.”

“I am not leaving this city,” I said.

“Lyra.”

“No.” I stood up. “I’m not leaving, I’m not marrying someone I don’t know because it’s politically useful, and I’m not pretending that this is about anything other than you wanting me somewhere you don’t have to manage me.” I looked at both of them. “This is Denise. This is what she does-she positions herself to make us react, and we react, and then she gets to stand there looking

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Chapter 63

untouchable while we clean up the fallout.”

My mother looked at her hands.

My father looked at me with an expression that I didn’t want to read correctly and so didn’t.

I left.

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Outside, the evening air was cold enough to be uncomfortable, which suited me.

I walked to the end of the driveway and stood with my phone in my hand and thought about what my father had said-the deals paused, the contracts under review, the investors reassessing. Dante going to Tokyo and back and coming home and saying nothing about the reason.

I thought about Denise at the Grand Aldric in that dress, waving.

I thought about her in the bridal shop, with Rosaline Nightshade in the chair.

I thought about what I’d shown her in the store-the photograph, the name-and the fact that none of it had done what it was supposed to do. She had looked at Alyssa Stone’s name and processed it with the same infuriating steadiness she processed everything, and then she had told me to leave.

I scrolled to Cyrus.

He answered on the second ring, which meant he’d been waiting for something and my call would do.

“Are you home?” I said.

“Hotel,” he said. “The situation with my father is–” He stopped. “Let’s say being at home is complicated right now.”

“Mine too,” I said.

A pause. “How bad?”

“They want to ship me to Verona to marry Marco Marchetti.”

A short silence. “Marchetti’s son?”

“Yes.”

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