TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 224

CHAPTER 160: HIS MANILA ENVELOPE

EMBER’S POV

I turn on the shower. The water runs cold for the first few seconds, then scalds, and I step under it and let

it burn.

“Ember.” Rayana’s voice again, softer now, closer to the bathroom door. “For what it’s worth… I’m here. If

you want to talk. I know we’re not-” She pauses. “I know I haven’t earned that. I know I’ve been difficult.

Manipulative. Probably awful, if we’re being honest.” Another pause. “But I meant what I said about this

trip. I want to learn what it is to be a good friend. Even if that starts from just being a good listener.”

Water runs down my face. Possibly tears mixed in. Hard to tell.

“I was jealous of you yesterday,” I say, and I don’t know why I’m saying it. “At the clinic. When you were delirious and calling his name and he was standing at your bedside like the world was ending. I was jealous of a woman who was literally unconscious from a medical emergency. That is how pathetic I am.”

Rayana is quiet for a moment.

Then, very softly: “That’s not pathetic, Ember. That’s just… love. Love from a woman who’s uncertain and scared and worried that it’s all unrequited. It makes all of us stupid.”

I close my eyes under the spray and let the heat work its way into muscles that have been clenched since yesterday morning.

And somewhere in the steam and the silence, I make a decision.

Today I’m going to talk to Knox. Not through a door or proxy. Face to face.

And I’m going to tell him that no matter how awful 2016 is, I want to hear it from him. Not from Rafael. Not from Nathaniel. Not overheard in fragments from behind a tree.

From his mouth, looking at his face, so I can see whether the truth lives in his eyes or just in his words.

And Queenie.

(‘

Today is the day this ends.

I am done – done protecting her, done managing her guilt, done watching her flinch every time someone mentions the trial and swallowing my rage because I don’t want to make a scene.

I have been taking care of everyone else’s feelings since Gale, since my mother, since the first time someone taught me that a good woman absorbs pain and never makes it anyone else’s problem.

No more.

Today I make it everyone’s problem.

I step out of the shower and towel off, wrapping it tight around myself. My hair drips down my shoulders, steam still clinging to my skin.

Lopen the bathroom door and nearly scream.

Rafael is in my room.

Sitting on the edge of my bed like he belongs there, legs crossed, freshly stitched above his eyebrow, bruises blooming across the left side of his face in shades of purple and green,

His eyes drop to my towel, to my bare shoulders, to the water still beading on my collarbone – and

something flickers there that he smothers before it fully forms.

“What the HELL-”

“Your front door was unlocked.” He says it like it’s the perfect explanation. “Rayana left it open when she

went to the lodge.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just walk into my-

“I found what I promised you.” He holds up a manila envelope. “Everything. The 2016 deal. Names, dates, terms. What Knox offered Gale. What Gale refused. All of it. In writing.”

I stare at the envelope. My heart hammering against my ribs.

There are bags under his eyes, dark and hollowed, and there is something slightly more unhinged about his form this morning. He didn’t sleep. Not a single hour, from the look of it.

“How…” I frown, clutching my towel tighter. “How were you able to get this so fast? Did you sleep at all?”

“No.” He says it simply. “I made calls. Pulled favours. People owe me things and I collected.”

“Overnight. You got all of this overnight.”

“I told you I had resources, Ember. I meant it. I wanted the truth. For you.”

“For me.” I wrap my towel tighter around my body, suddenly very aware of the vulnerability of the situation – wet hair, bare skin, a man who is not Knox sitting on my bed with a package designed to blow up his life.

“Get out.”

“What, Ember-”

r

“I said get out.” I step back, putting distance between us. “I don’t want that. In fact, I’m not sure I want you in my space at all. I know things got a little… personal yesterday, but I was spiraling, and you were there for me. I appreciate that, but it ends there. I don’t want anything from you. Not after the stunt you pulled yesterday. I don’t want the ‘truth‘ served up in a fucking envelope by a man who’s my boyfriend’s worst

enemy.”

Anger flashes across his face, igniting those gray eyes with a flitting dangerous glint.

“You can’t be serious.” He stands, and the room shrinks. Rafael is tall, broader than he looks in his tailored clothes, and when he moves toward me there’s a deliberateness to it that makes my pulse spike. “After everything he’s done? After he fucking pushed you away? After the way he shut you down, terrified you, left you alone in the woods you still want to hear it from HIM?”

417

Yes.”

“Why?”

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