The Bride Who Chose Her Own Kingdom

Back at the estate, I had just taken off my jacket when Vivian updated her feed.

In an underground room at Raven Club, they were playing truth or dare. Vivian had been dared to kiss anyone in the room.

The video swept across the poker table, the glasses, the cigar smoke, then landed on Lucas. Vivian bit her lip and looked at him as if begging for rescue.

"Lucas, you're the only one here I really know."

The room erupted.

"Miss Castor, how are we strangers? Other than the DeLuca heir, are the rest of us invisible?"

Vivian stammered, nearly crying. Lucas sat on the sofa, unreadable.

"Forget it." Vivian picked up a glass. "If he doesn't want to, I'll drink the penalty."

Just before the rim touched her lips, a hand reached out and stopped her.

Lucas frowned. "You're allergic to hard liquor. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Vivian's voice trembled. "What else can I do? If I don't finish the dare, I have to take the punishment."

The whistles grew louder. Lucas watched her for a few seconds, then lifted her chin.

"No one but me?"

"No one."

Vivian grabbed his collar and rose on her toes to kiss him.

This time, Lucas did not push her away.

He even caught her by the waist, turning a dare that should have stopped at a joke into something everyone in the room understood.

"That's our DeLuca heir!"

"Now that's a bet."

The screen filled with laughter and the clink of glasses. My heart felt dropped into boiling oil.

I had told myself I did not care. But ten years of love is not a splinter you pull out clean. It is a nail grown into bone.

The video was not over when someone asked, "Lucas, aren't you afraid Evelyn will be mad?"

Lucas leaned back on the sofa and wiped his thumb over the corner of his mouth, completely careless.

"So what if she is? Once midnight passes and her seal locks into London with mine, it won't matter how much she fusses. She'll come back to me in the end."

Someone laughed. "You're that sure?"

"Of course," Lucas said. "My little shadow can't survive without me."

The room burst into laughter again.

Then someone who had been quiet looked at his phone, and his voice changed.

"Wait. The Rossi seal just locked into Marseille."

The room went dead silent.

He refreshed the page as if he could not believe it.

"Evelyn didn't change it! She chose the Marseille coastal lab. Neurotoxin reversal project. Lead candidate."