The CEO Uncle Who Loved Me First

Chapter 6: The Question at Dinner

Everett had never liked being watched by Lucian Blackwood.

No one did.

Lucian did not stare the way other people stared. He did not look curious, irritated, or judgmental. His gaze was quieter than that, colder than that. It made a man feel as if every word he had not yet spoken had already been weighed and found wanting.

Across the Blackwood dining room, Everett kept his posture straight.

“Uncle Lucian,” he said again, because the silence after the first greeting had stretched a second too long. “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

Lucian lifted his glass but did not drink.

“My mother’s birthday seemed worth returning for.”

Mrs. Blackwood smiled from the head of the table. “At least you still remember that much.”

A few relatives laughed softly. The atmosphere eased, but only on the surface.

Everett reached for his water.

Lucian’s attention remained on him.

“I heard you’re getting married next month,” Lucian said.

Everett’s fingers tightened slightly around the glass.

“Yes.” He kept his tone polite. “To Aurora Bennett.”

“The Bennett family’s daughter.”

“Yes.”

Lucian’s expression did not change. “The one who grew up outside the Bennett family.”

There it was again.

That edge.

Everett could not tell whether Lucian was asking casually or setting a trap. With Lucian, the difference was never obvious until it was too late.

“She was found when she was sixteen,” Everett said. “The engagement was between the Stone family and the Bennett family’s biological daughter.”

“How convenient.”

Everett looked up.

Lucian’s face remained calm, but the words sat strangely between them.

Everett’s mother cleared her throat. “Aurora is… quiet. She’s not as polished as Cecilia, but she has been with Everett for three years. The wedding is already arranged.”

“Is it?” Lucian asked.

The dining room quieted again.

Everett felt his mother glance at him.

He forced a faint smile. “There was a small disagreement today. Nothing serious.”

Lucian finally set his glass down.

“A small disagreement.”

Everett’s throat tightened.

Lucian leaned back in his chair, one hand resting near the edge of the table. The gold rim of his glasses caught the chandelier light, but his eyes stayed dark.

“On my way here,” he said, “I saw a woman who looked very much like Aurora Bennett.”

Everett’s heart gave a hard, sudden beat.

Lucian continued, his tone almost indifferent. “Her forehead was covered in blood.”

The words struck the table like a blade laid flat.

Everett’s mind flashed back.

Aurora’s body hitting the coffee table.

The red line down her face.

Her standing there, shaking but upright, telling him she did not want him anymore.

He looked away too quickly, then forced himself to look back.

“Aurora?” he said, as if the name surprised him. “Are you sure?”

Lucian watched him.

Everett made himself laugh. “You may have seen someone else. I was with her earlier this afternoon. We went over some wedding matters. She was fine.”

Mrs. Blackwood’s brows drew together.

Lucian did not blink.

“She was fine.”

“Yes.” Everett could feel his own pulse now. “She can be dramatic, but she wasn’t hurt.”

A pause.

Then Lucian’s mouth curved by a fraction.

It was not a smile.

“Then perhaps I saw wrong.”

The conversation moved on only because Mrs. Blackwood lifted her fork and asked about a harmless topic. People were relieved enough to follow her lead. Someone mentioned a charity auction. Someone else asked Lucian about his time overseas.

Everett heard none of it clearly.

His palms had gone damp.

Across the table, Lucian ate quietly, as if he had not just placed a noose around a lie and left it there.

What Everett did not know was that Lucian had already seen the truth for himself. The blood on Aurora’s forehead had begun to dry before the collision, while the crash had only reopened the wound.

She had been hurt before she hit his car.

Everett’s lie merely confirmed what Lucian already suspected.

After dinner, Everett left the main hall with his mother.

She waited until they were in the back corridor, away from the older relatives, before she stopped.

“What happened with Aurora?”

Everett’s jaw tightened. “Nothing.”

“Do not lie to me.” His mother’s voice sharpened. “You always look away before you lie.”

He exhaled. “She caused a scene at the Bennetts’.”

“What kind of scene?”

“She cut up the wedding dress.”

His mother stared at him. “What?”

Everett rubbed the bridge of his nose. The image irritated him again—the torn silk, Cecilia’s scream, Aurora’s cold eyes.

“She lost control,” he said. “Cecilia tried on the dress. Aurora overreacted.”

“Cecilia tried on Aurora’s wedding dress?”

Everett did not answer.

His mother’s expression changed slightly.

She had never liked Aurora. That was no secret. Aurora had been found too late, raised outside the elite circle, too quiet in the wrong places and too stubborn in others. She did not have Cecilia’s polish, Cecilia’s softness, Cecilia’s ability to make people protect her without asking.

But dislike was one thing.

Scandal was another.

“And the blood?” his mother asked.

Everett looked down the corridor.

“She lunged at Cecilia with scissors. I pushed her away. She hit the coffee table.” His voice grew defensive. “I didn’t mean for her to get hurt.”

“You pushed her hard enough that she bled?”

“She was holding scissors.”

His mother closed her eyes briefly. “Everett.”

“Mrs. Bennett was there,” he said. “If it were serious, she would have said something.”

His mother gave a humorless smile.

“That tells me more about the Bennett family than about the injury.”

Everett frowned.

She looked at him carefully. “Did Aurora go to the hospital?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

He said nothing.

His mother’s face tightened. “The wedding is next month. I don’t care whether you are fond of her or not. Don’t create a mess you cannot control.”

Everett’s phone was in his hand before he realized he had taken it out.

Aurora’s name sat in his contacts.

For a moment, he saw her again as she had looked leaving the living room. Blood on her face. Ring on the floor. Back straight enough to look unbreakable.

This wedding is over.

He frowned.

She had said things in anger before. Not like this, but still. Aurora had a temper when pushed too far. She would cool down. She always did.

But his thumb hovered over the call button anyway.

Before he pressed it, his phone rang.

Eleanor Bennett.

Everett answered immediately.

“Mrs. Bennett?”

“Everett,” Eleanor said, her voice anxious and breathless. “I’m sorry to bother you after tonight’s trouble, but Cecilia has a fever.”

Everett straightened. “What?”

“She won’t go to the hospital. She keeps saying she doesn’t deserve care because she upset Aurora. She’s been calling your name.”

The thought of calling Aurora disappeared.

“How high is the fever?”

“I don’t know. She won’t let Tristan take her temperature properly. She’s crying.”

Everett’s grip tightened around the phone.

“I’m coming.”

His mother looked at him. “Everett?”

He was already turning toward the front hall.

“Cecilia is sick,” he said. “I need to go to the Bennetts’.”

His mother’s expression cooled. “And Aurora?”

Everett paused for less than a second.

Then he said, “Aurora can wait.”

At St. Gabriel Medical Center, Aurora had been awake for almost an hour.

The dizziness had lessened, though the ache in her head remained. The nurse had dimmed the lights and told her to rest, but rest was impossible when her mind kept circling the same question.

Who had brought her here?

She remembered almost nothing clearly after the crash. A black car. A man’s voice. Cold cedar. Strong arms lifting her from the driver’s seat.

The nurse had not known his name.

But the director had come down personally.

Blackwood.

The thought sat uneasily in her chest.

Aurora reached for the water cup on the bedside table. Her fingers had just closed around it when her phone rang.

For one irrational second, she thought it might be Everett.

It was not.

Tristan Bennett.

Her brother.

Aurora stared at the name until the phone nearly stopped ringing. Then she answered.

“Hello.”

“Where are you?” Tristan’s voice was cold from the first word. “Do you know what time it is? The family waited for dinner.”

Aurora looked at the IV line in her hand.

A strange laugh almost escaped her.

“I’m not having dinner,” she said. “I’m in the hospital.”

There was a brief pause.

Then Tristan’s voice hardened.

“Don’t start pretending to be pitiful.”

Aurora went still.

“I don’t care what excuse you’re using this time,” he continued. “You need to come home and apologize to Cecilia.”

The room seemed to sharpen around her.

The white blanket. The clear IV drip. The ache beneath the bandage.

“Apologize?”

“Yes. You frightened her badly. Do you know she has a fever now?”

Aurora closed her eyes.

Of course.

Cecilia had a fever.

Cecilia always had something. A fever, a faint spell, a trembling hand, an old childhood fear. Anything soft enough to wrap around the necks of everyone in that house and pull them toward her.

“She wore my wedding dress,” Aurora said quietly.

“I don’t care whose dress it was.”

Her eyes opened.

Tristan’s voice sliced through the line. “You cut it up while she was wearing it. Do you understand how terrifying that was for her?”

“I cut the dress. I didn’t touch her.”

“You scared her.”

“And Everett pushed me into a table.”

Another pause.

Aurora’s fingers tightened around the phone.

“I’m in the hospital, Tristan,” she said, each word controlled. “Everett shoved me. I hit my head. Then I got into a car accident.”

Tristan said nothing.

Not are you all right.

Not how badly are you hurt.

Not which hospital.

Silence.

Then he said, “If you hadn’t made such a scene, none of that would have happened.”

Aurora stared at the opposite wall.

Something inside her, something that had bent for ten years, finally stopped bending.

“Do all of you think I’m made of iron?”

Tristan’s breathing shifted. “What?”

“She took my wedding dress. Everett lied to me. Mom told me to let Cecilia have it. Everett pushed me hard enough to make me bleed. I left that house with blood on my face, and none of you came after me.”

Her voice did not rise.

That made the words colder.

“Now you’re calling me in a hospital to tell me to apologize.”

Tristan sounded irritated now, as if her clarity offended him.

“Aurora, don’t twist this. Cecilia is fragile. You know that. She’s been like this since she was a child.”

“No,” Aurora said. “She’s been protected since she was a child. There’s a difference.”

“Aurora Bennett.”

She smiled faintly.

There it was.

The full name. The warning. The reminder that she was supposed to be grateful, obedient, careful.

Not anymore.

“I won’t apologize to Cecilia.”

Tristan went silent.

Aurora continued, “The person who should apologize is her.”

“You really think you can talk like this because you have a little temper?”

“And I won’t marry Everett Stone.”

This time, the silence lasted longer.

When Tristan spoke again, his voice was lower.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me. I won’t marry him. Cecilia has always acted like that engagement belonged to her. Fine. She can have it.”

“You’re being childish.”

“No.” Aurora looked down at her bare hand, at the faint mark where her engagement ring had been. “For the first time, I’m not.”

She hung up.

For a while, she simply sat there with the phone in her lap.

Her chest hurt, but the pain was different now.

Cleaner.

At the Bennett estate, Tristan stared at his phone in disbelief.

Eleanor hurried toward him from Cecilia’s room. “What did she say? When is she coming back to apologize?”

Tristan’s expression darkened.

“She said she won’t apologize.”

Eleanor froze. “What?”

“She also said she won’t marry Everett.”

Eleanor pressed a hand to her chest. “She’s still saying that?”

“She thinks she has wings now.” Tristan gave a cold laugh. “Cancel her monthly allowance. Immediately.”

Eleanor hesitated. “Tristan…”

“She wants to act independent?” His eyes were hard. “Let her. I want to see how long she lasts without the family’s money.”

A weak sob came from Cecilia’s room.

Both of them turned at once.

Cecilia lay under a pale blanket, cheeks flushed, eyes wet. She looked smaller than she was, almost childlike, with her hair loose over the pillow.

“Mom,” she whispered. “Tristan. Don’t be mad at Aurora. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t go to the hospital. I don’t deserve to.”

Eleanor rushed to her bedside. “What nonsense are you saying?”

Tristan’s face softened immediately. “Cecilia, stop this. You’re sick.”

Cecilia shook her head, tears slipping down her temples.

“I made Aurora angry. I wore her dress. Maybe if I punish myself, she won’t hate me so much.”

“Don’t say that.” Tristan’s voice turned sharp with pain. “You are more important than Aurora a hundred times over. Don’t ever say you don’t deserve care.”

Eleanor held Cecilia’s hand, her own eyes reddening. “Your brother is right. You’re my precious girl. How could you hurt yourself like this?”

The door opened.

Everett walked in, still in the suit he had worn to the Blackwood dinner.

Cecilia turned her tearful face toward him.

“Everett,” she whispered.

He went to her side without hesitation.

“I’m here.”

Cecilia’s lips trembled. “Do you think so too?”

Everett sat beside the bed. “Think what?”

“That I’m important.” Her voice broke. “That I’m not… bad.”

Everett looked at her flushed face, her wet eyes, the fragile way she clutched the blanket.

Then he thought of Aurora’s bloodied forehead.

Only for a second.

He pushed the thought down.

He lifted a hand and gently brushed Cecilia’s hair from her face.

“You’re important,” he said.

Cecilia looked at him as if those words had saved her.

Everett’s voice lowered.

“You are the most important.”

In the quiet hospital room miles away, Aurora wiped the last trace of tears from the corner of her eye.

She looked at the dark window and the pale reflection of the bandage on her forehead.

Family.

Love.

Engagement.

All of it had been used to hurt her because she had kept reaching for it.

Never again.

Aurora set the phone aside, leaned back against the pillow, and whispered into the empty room, “None of you can hurt me anymore.”