Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 246

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Ch. 18

Cassandra

The visitor hold at Ironwood is a small room with two chairs and a table and a window that looks out at the eastern grounds. It’s nice enough. But also the place only visitors who might not be welcome to stay for long end up. It’s no surprise I fall firmly in that category.

I settle into a plastic chair and stifle a yelp at the pain the movement inflicts. It’s five in the morning and I’ve been awake all night. I’m exhausted with a four-year-old sleeping in my lap and cracked ribs and a face that I know looks exactly as bad as it feels, waiting for the man I wronged to come decide what to do with me. And did I mention I’m nervous as hell?

The guard who brought us here was professional. Not exactly warm but not cruel either. He brought me water that I can’t drink without fear it won’t stay down, whether due to my nerves or my injuries, I couldn’t say.

I just know cruelty is not off the table once Noah arrives.

We’ve been here twenty minutes when Liam starts to stir. He takes in the room with quiet observation, starting at the door and moving clockwise. The chairs, the table, the window, the grounds outside. The water cups on the

table. Me.

“Is this the place?” he asks in his most unimpressed tone. “The one you talked about.”

“Yes, this is it?”

He stares out the window like he’s contemplating something then looks back at me. “Were you bad here?”

I look at my way too astute four-year-old son. He has his father’s eyes and, I’m increasingly certain, some quality that’s purely his own-a combination of patience and awareness that I don’t recognize from either of us. He’s asking because he wants to know, not to make me feel bad. I know this. It guts me all the same.

“Yes,” I answer honestly. “I made some mistakes here.”

“What kind of mistakes? Like when I forget to pick up my action men and you get hurt stepping on them?” He asks, his expression serious.

I smile at his innocence while I think about how to say this. “No, baby, nothing like that. Forgetting is not the same as doing something on purpose. What I did, it hurt people on purpose.

“You and I came to live here before,” I remind him. “Before you went to live with your dad and Gran Vera, remember?”

He shakes his head.

“If we get invited upstairs, you might recognize it. I told you some things that weren’t true back then,” I say. “I brought you here and told the people here that a man was your papa when he wasn’t.” I keep my voice even. “And I made it seem like you were sicker than you were, to get people to pay attention to us.”

He’s very still in my lap, taking in my words with a level of attention that belies his young age. “Why?” he asks.

“Because I was selfish,” It’s hard to admit to him. I’d much rather he think I’m perfect but I haven’t earned that.” And scared. And I made bad choices because of it.”

He thinks about this with the focused concentration he applies to important questions. I let him think. I don’t fill the silence.

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“Are you going to do that again?” There’s a tiny growl in his tone and I have to hold back a chuckle.

Because his face is serious and he deserves a serious answer. He’s not asking to be reassured-he’s asking because he needs the real answer, and he’ll know if I give him the other kind.

“No, I promise you I’m not.” It’s a vow I intend to keep.

He holds my gaze for a moment. Then he puts his head against my chest. It hurts like hell, my ribs making themselves known with a sharp, stabbing complaint. But I absorb it without letting on. His weight against me is warm and real and more than I deserve at this particular moment.

“Okay,” he murmurs sleepily. I put my arm around him and hold on.

Liam dozes on and off but his eyes are half-closed and his breathing has slowed and I have a few minutes of relative quiet to deal with the other thing. The bond.

I’ve been more aware of it since we crossed the gate, which is not a surprise-I knew proximity would do this, I’ve been bracing for it since I decided to come here. But knowing doesn’t make it manageable. It’s stronger than it’s been in months. He’s somewhere close-in this building, or near it-and the thread that has been faint and dormant for so long is doing something it hasn’t done since the first time I felt it.

Pulling.

“That road is closed.” My inner voice reminds me.

I closed it first then he closed it permanently. Whatever the bond is doing right now, it is not a reflection of what’s possible between us. It’s just biology. It’s the mechanics of a connection that was rejected but didn’t disappear and has been waiting for exactly this kind of close quarters to make its case.

The bond doesn’t get to make a case.

I am here because I have nowhere else to go. End of story. Liam needs safety and I have run out of every other option for providing it. That is the reason I’m here. The only reason.

If by some miracle Noah lets us stay-if he looks at us and decides the ask is something he’s willing to honor-I cannot go anywhere near whatever the bond is doing.

Not because I don’t feel it. Because I don’t have the right to act on it. Because he didn’t deserve what I did the first time and he definitely doesn’t deserve me showing up broken and desperate and using the bond as another play.

I am done with plays.

I tell myself this. Several times.

I almost convince myself.

Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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