~ Lucien ~
The silence in the conference room was a physical weight, thick with the scent of floor wax and the cold, metallic tang of Seraphina’s fear. I watched her through the dim light of the late afternoon. She looked fragile, her hands pressed against the glass-topped table as if she were trying to anchor herself to the earth.
“You had me investigated,” she said again, her voice a jagged sliver of glass.
“Yes.” I didn't move to comfort her. I didn't offer a lie to soften the blow. In my world, lies were for the weak and the desperate. Truth, even a jagged one, was a weapon I could control. “I’ve had a team on Adrian for two years. You were simply a part of his landscape.”
She looked up, her eyes bright with a sudden, sharp clarity. “You slept with me to hurt my husband.”
I met he
