CHAPTER 52 – THE EDGE OF CONTROL
L U C I A N
The morning had started quietly.
I was still at the estate when the call came through not from Silas this time, but from the head of security.
"Sir," the man said, his tone clipped, "Miss Hale is at the gate."
I set down my coffee cup, my jaw tightening.
"Let her wait," I said.
"She's demanding to see you. She says it's about the children."
A muscle jumped in my jaw.
The children.
My children.
I turned to look out the wide glass windows of my study. The sun was just rising over the gardens, gilding the perfectly trimmed hedges in gold.
"She forfeited the right to demand anything the second she tried to run," I said coldly.
"Yes, sir."
The call ended.
I stood there for a long moment, staring out at the grounds, forcing my breath to stay even.
But my hands were clenched behind my back so tightly I could feel my nails digging into my skin.
"Let her wait?" Silas said when I told him. His expression was carefully neutral, but I could see the flicker of something in his eyes disapproval, maybe, or frustration.
"She's lucky I haven't pressed charges," I muttered. "Do you know what could have happened if she had gotten on that plane? Do you know how dangerous that would have been for the girls?"
Silas said nothing.
I hated that about him sometimes the way he didn't speak unless it was necessary, the way he forced me to sit with my own thoughts.
"She slapped me," I said finally, my voice low. "No one has ever done that before."
"She was angry," Silas said simply.
"She disrespected me," I snapped.
"Perhaps," he said, his tone maddeningly calm, "but you are still the only father those girls have. Whatever you do next will decide whether they see the two of you as a family, or as enemies."
I turned away, because he was right, and I didn't want to admit it.
I shouldn't have gone to the office.
I had work waiting contracts, acquisitions, numbers that would normally hold my full attention.
But my mind wasn't on business.
It was on her.
So when another call came this time from the lobby telling me Rina Hale was downstairs causing a scene, I almost laughed.
Of course she was.
Of course she couldn't just wait.
Part of me respected it that fire in her, the refusal to bow but the larger part of me…
The larger part of me burned.
"Let her shout," I said. "But don't let her through."
"Yes, sir."
I stood by the window of my corner office, looking down at the street below, and there she was a small figure in a pale blouse, pacing, her hands clenched into fists.
Even from thirty floors up, I could feel the fury coming off her in waves.
I didn't plan to follow her.
But when she finally stormed out of the building, head high despite the fact that security had escorted her out, I found myself moving before I could stop.
By the time she reached her car, mine was already pulling up to the curb across the street.
I lowered the window.
She froze when she saw me.
For a second, neither of us moved.
The city moved around us cars, people, noise but it all faded until there was only her, standing on the pavement, chest heaving, tears glistening on her face.
I felt something twist in my chest.
Damn her.
Damn her for looking at me like that, for making me feel anything at all.
I wanted to get out of the car.
I wanted to cross the street, grab her by the shoulders, demand she stop fighting me and just listen.
But I stayed where I was.
Because I couldn't trust myself not to say something I'd regret.
So I rolled the window back up and told the driver to go.
"She looked broken," Silas said quietly from the front seat.
I didn't answer.
"She's still their mother, Lucian," he added.
"I know that," I said sharply.
But my voice didn't sound as certain as I wanted it to.
Silas glanced at me in the rearview mirror, then said nothing more.
The car hummed softly as we drove back to the estate, but my mind wasn't quiet.
It was chaos.
Images of her standing outside the gate this morning, shouting in my lobby, glaring at me through the glass swirled through my thoughts like smoke I couldn't clear.
I wanted to be angry.
I was angry.
But underneath the anger was something else.
Something raw and dangerous.
The part of me that had missed her all these years, even when I didn't know her name.
The part of me that wanted her in my house, not just as the mother of my daughters, but as.....
I cut the thought off before it could finish.
No.
I wouldn't let her do this to me again.
She could fight, she could scream, she could hate me all she wanted.
But she wasn't going anywhere.
Not with my children.
Not ever.
By the time we reached the estate, my mind was made up.
If she wanted war, I would give her war.
But she would fight it under my terms.
"She wants my attention?" I said quietly as the car rolled up the long driveway.
"Yes," Silas said.
"She has it."