Chapter 203

Andrew and Lisa sat at the dining table in the mansion, glasses of wine cradled in their hands. Lisa had changed out of her wedding dress and into a tank top and yoga pants, and Andrew had undone the tie and removed the jacket of his three-piece suit. Andrew patiently watched Lisa, while Lisa stared absently into her red wine.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Andrew asked.

“Why did she have to do that?” Lisa snapped. Tears dripped down her face and into her wine, sending ripples through the liquid.

“Who?” Andrew said, feigning ignorance.

“Crystal! I know that she was the one who set the cops on Bob.”

“You don’t know that for certain—”

“Don’t try to protect her, Father. No one else would have a reason to. And for the exact charge that she was accused of…”

“And cleared of,” Andrew reminded her.

Lisa huffed.

“Not by a jury. The charges were just dropped.”

She set her wine aside and pinched the bridge of her nose with her index finger and thumb.

“Why did she have to do this to me, Father? And on my wedding day? Is she really so jealous of our relationship—of me—that she would embarrass me like that?

Andrew put his glass on the table as well and took her hand in both of his. Lisa looked up at him with shimmering eyes as he ran his thumb over the back of her hand. He could see in her the little girl that he had once held while she cried after learning that her mother had died, and he pushed aside his anger at Crystal so that he could help his daughter make sense of the world again.

“She did it to protect you…and herself,” he said.

“How could this possibly protect me? And what could she be protecting either of us from? Bob wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Andrew glanced at Lisa’s elbow. He lifted his hand to trace the fading finger-shaped bruises there. His temper momentarily flared, but when Lisa flinched, it immediately cooled.

He retracted his hand from Lisa’s arm and placed it back on her hand, looking her straight in the eye.

“It might be hard to believe, but Bob has done some horrible things,” he explained. “He has tried to hurt Crystal many times and come very close multiple times. It’s gotten to the point that I…I am not sure if I can protect her.”

For Andrew to admit that he might not be able to protect someone whom he cared about was a shock to Lisa. All her life, Andrew had been everyone’s protector. She couldn’t imagine even the direst situation in which he couldn’t serve that role.

“But why did it have to be at our wedding, Father? And couldn’t she have tried talking to us first? Now all that people are going to remember is Bob being dragged away in handcuffs.”

Andrew could see the pain in Lisa’s eyes, the humiliation. His grip on her hands tightened. His fury towards Crystal spiked, but he forced himself to focus on Lisa’s needs.

“I don’t know why the police had to come then,” he said, breathing slowly in and out through his nose to keep himself calm. “However, I’m sure that if she had known ahead of time, she would have made sure that it didn’t happen during your wedding.”

She would have had it happen beforehand, he wanted to add, but he kept that thought to himself.

“As for talking to you two, she couldn’t talk to Bob. We didn’t know how he would react. And she did try to talk to you—we both did.”

Lisa cast her eyes down to the floor.

“We tried to warn you how dangerous Bob was and to get you out of the relationship before the wedding—”

“Did you know?” Lisa said, her eyes snapping up to meet Andrew’s.

Andrew blinked in confusion.

“Know what?”

“Did you know that Crystal was going to call the police on Bob? Is that why you tried to make me break up with him?”

“No! Not exactly…I mean, I knew that she wanted him arrested, but I didn’t know that she was going to go ahead with it at this point—”

“So, you did know!”

“No, I didn’t know that he would get arrested at your wedding or that it would happen any time soon…”

Lisa ripped her hands out of Andrew’s grasp. She ran her hand through her hair and began to pace the distance from the dining table to the doors.

“How does that make it any better?” she asked. “You knew that something was going to happen to him, and you did nothing…”

Suddenly, she stopped in front of Andrew, her mouth agape.

“Did you help plan it?”

Andrew cracked his neck, starting with his left side and then going to his right. He did not meet Lisa’s eyes.

“It’s more complicated than that…”

Tears sprung to Lisa’s eyes. She shook her head violently.

“No, it’s not. Either you helped or you didn’t.”

Andrew sighed and finally looked Lisa in the eye.

“Yes. I did.”

Lisa’s lower lip trembled. She grabbed her glass and threw the wine at Andrew, soaking his white collared shirt and staining it pink. She then slammed the glass back onto the table and stormed toward the doors.

Before Lisa could reach for the doorknob, Andrew grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into his chest. He held her in a bear hug, not caring that he was getting remnants of Lisa’s wine on her tank top. She struggled to be released, but eventually, she settled into his embrace.

Lisa buried her face into Andrew’s shoulder. Her tears mixed with the alcohol in the fabric of his shirt. She dug her nails into his torso as she found her own weight hard to support.

“It’s okay, baby girl,” Andrew whispered, stroking her hair. “It’s all going to be okay.”

“No,” she whimpered, “no, it’s not. None of this is going to be okay.”

She wept and shuddered as sadness racked her body.

“What are they going to think, Father?” she asked. “Lady Charlene, Lady Clement, all the others? I’ll never be invited to another party again.”

“Don’t worry, Lisa. This, too, shall pass. And no one would dare have a party without you.”

He smiled down at her as she looked up at him.

“You’re the daughter of the Alpha King, after all. They wouldn’t want to piss me off.”

Lisa tried to giggle for Andrew, but she ended up hiccupping instead. She rested her head back on his shoulder and let her father’s strong arms comfort her, just like they did when she was a child. After a few minutes, she sighed and nuzzled her head against his collarbone.

“Father, what if it’s true?” she asked, her voice quiet and unsure. “What if Bob really did kill that man?”

Andrew stared straight ahead and rubbed Lisa’s back.

“Then he will be put in jail, where he belongs.”

“But what will happen to me, especially now that we’re married?” Her fear was palpable. “What will people think of me?”

Andrew took a slow, deliberate breath. He then kissed Lisa on the top of her head and brushed back her hair.

“I think you’re going to be just fine.”