TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 445

CHAPTER 368. THE GALA’S HOST

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CHAPTER 368: THE GALA’S HOST

KNOX’S POV

“Knox-” It comes out strained.

“I told you that one day you’d be free of this house,” I say. “That you’d go out into the world, and it would finally see how clever you are, and it would be sorry it ever tried to make you small. That you wouldn’t have to work twice as hard to be worthy.” I hold her wet, furious gaze. “I meant it then, Hale. I mean it now. That’s what this is. It’s a punishment. It’s not a banishment. This house-“I gesture at it, the walls, the shelves, the grandmother’s crowded things “-this house is another linen press. A beautiful one. The most comfortable one in the world. You finally have what you always wanted: their respect. They don’t whisper about ‘Creepy Hale’ anymore; they bow to the former Lady of the house. I know exactly how intoxicating that tastes, and I know you’d burn the world down before you ever go back to being a joke. But you have spent your whole life being Knox Volkov’s cousin, who runs the house. And you are so much more than that; you’re cleverer than half the people I see on councils, and it is a waste that makes me sick to look at.”

She’s staring at me now, tears tracking down, saying nothing at all.

“I want you to have your own life,” I say. “Your own house, your own staff, your own name that isn’t hung off the back of mine like a coat. I want you to be Hale Volkov, who is brilliant, and I want the world to find that out. Not the woman who lives in my east wing and airs my rooms. You’ve been hiding in this bubble for a long time, and Goddess knows I understand why; I’ve hidden in my own- but hiding is still hiding, cousin, even when the hiding place is lovely. And you don’t need to hide anymore. You’re grown. You’re formidable. So go and be formidable somewhere the whole world can watch you do it.” My voice drops low. “That is all the house is. It’s me pulling you out of the linen press. Because no one ever did it for either of us. I had to claw my own way out with my hands, and I would not wish that on you. I want you to walk out into the daylight on your own two feet-comfortable, provided for, and free.”

For a long moment she doesn’t move.

Then she wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, quick, almost angry about it, and when she speaks, her voice is steadier, but there’s a thing under it now that I can’t read at all.

“That’s a very pretty speech, cousin.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Perhaps it is.” She turns away, back to the window, gathering herself. “You always could make the knife feel like a mercy. It’s a gift, truly. You should have been a preacher.” She lets out a breath, and then a thin, bitter laugh. “Fine. Fine, Knox. If you’ve decided, then you’ve decided-you were always

CHAPTER 368 THE GALA’S HOST

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going to do precisely as you pleased regardless of what anyone said; that’s the whole point of crown.” She’s silent for a beat. Then: “But I am not leaving before the gala.”

I’d expected this.

“Hale-”

“No.” She rounds on me, and the tears are gone, and there’s ice where they were. “I have run the annual gala for this house for years. Every single year. It is the one thing that is mine. That I buil That this family and half the continent’s high houses associate with my name. And you will not pack me off to your dower cottage three days before it like something you’re ashamed to have seen. I will see the gala done, and I will do it right, the way it’s always been done, and then I will g to your little house at the end of the world and tend my garden like a good exiled aunt.”

And here is the part I have been dreading throughout this entire conversation, because it’s cruel and there is no kind way to do it.

“You’re not running the gala this year, Hale.”

She goes rigid.

“…What?”

“Ember is.”

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