Chapter 140

Lucian’s POV

As Aria checked to ensure that her disguise was in place, I stepped out of her personal office and back into the main one. The kids, by now, were showing each other their crayon drawings, while Cathy sat patiently in one of the waiting chairs.

Cathy was watching me. Maybe she could see in my face that I knew what I knew now. Maybe she had known from the start what Aria was going to tell me.

I didn’t know, nor did I have time to worry about it. Instead, my focus was on the children, though they paid no real attention to me, with as deeply as they were discussing their drawings.

I tried to calculate their age, remembering Dr. A’s pregnancy.

The truth was staring me right in the face. I’d pushed Aria away so much during our marriage that I had led her straight into the arms of another man for comfort.

With my negligence to our marriage, she had left me in her heart long before she moved out of our estate.

Though the thoughts repulsed and enraged me, I could not be angry with her. It was through my own failings that I had all but forced her to find an affair to feel affection and intimacy.

I hated this unknown man, who gave Aria in the moment what I had failed to, satisfying her needs that I had too long neglected. This unknown man, who had filled her with his seed and made these children.

My feelings for the children remained strong. It was not their fault what happened. Nor was it Aria’s, who I continued to love as much as ever.

What bothered me now, however, more than even my self-loathing, were angry thoughts about this unknown father. Where was he? Why wasn’t he here? Why hasn’t he made Aria his wife and stepped in to father these children?

Instead the coward and cad had seemingly left Aria all alone to raise the kids, not following her to Moonglow or even seeming to offer any support at all.

My dire thoughts began to swirl as I started considering how difficult or easy it would be to track this man down and make him do the right thing.

I tried to think back, to remember if there were any prominent male figures in Aria’s life back near the end. Two flash through my mind.

Matthew, her friend in the military. But she had firmly rejected him, insisting she only wanted to be friends. While it was possible that this insistence happened after a torrid love affair, that didn’t seem to match what I knew about Aria.

She was not the kind of woman to just have casual sex. If she was going to have an affair with a man, it was only going to be because she felt romantic affection for him, perhaps even love.

That only left one other potential option, one I was loathe to consider.

My cousin. Jasper.

He had clear affection for Aria, and they had a relationship as soon as she left me. Perhaps he was the more obvious choice. Likely he had been pursuing her since even before she left the house we shared.

He was a playboy and a cad. He could have fooled her into thinking that he loved her, making her love him too. Then he could have used her for sex and split after.

Granted, I had seen him recently propose, which Aria rejected. But that could have been a recent turn of conscience.

Regardless, if those were his kids, he should have been with them from the start.

Fury sparked within me, and I immediately and wordlessly head to the door. Yanking the door open, I stepped outside, with a clear destination in mind.

Jasper should be at the office.

It was past time for him and me to have a little chat.

Aria’s POV

I stopped in the office doorway to watch Lucian watch our children. Though I couldn’t see his face, I saw the tension in his shoulders and noticed the way his hands curled into fists.

Bracing myself, I half expected him to turn around and confront me, to demand to know why I didn’t tell him about his children. I thought he might even hate me. Maybe he even had a right to.

Instead, without looking back or saying one word, Lucian turned toward the door and stormed out of it. As it closed harmlessly behind him, I looked at Cathy, and found her looking back at me.

“You told him,” she said.

“Who I am,” I said. “But not about…” I glanced at the kids. “Do you think he figured it out?”

Cathy frowned. “He seemed angry.”

“He handled the revelation about my identity well enough,” I said, and told her more specifically what happened.

Cathy listened carefully, nodding along, though with growing confusion on her face. That confusion matched mine.

“His shift had to be about the kids,” Cathy said. “If he handled everything else so well…”

“But why? Do you think he doesn’t want…?” I glanced at the kids again, as pain sliced into my heart. If Lucian didn’t want to be a father, I didn’t know how I would feel about that.

But how could that be? He was good with the kids, and they all seemed to like each other.

“I don’t know if that’s it,” Cathy said. “Maybe he just doesn’t know…”

I looked at her with concern, the pieces slowly fitting together in my mind. “He thinks I had an affair.”

Gods, he was probably furious with me!

But… maybe it was better this way. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to bring the kids into all this yet. Lucian had only just found out about my identity as Dr. A. To tell him he also had two children?

I wasn’t ready. I needed to be sure that Lucian could handle the first revelation well enough before I revealed this second, larger one.

I couldn’t risk the kids getting hurt, if Lucian decided he didn’t want them.

“Aria,” Cathy said. “Have you considered telling everyone else about your identity now? Like telling the press or having a conference? Wanting to keep the secret from Lucian was your biggest hang-up, right? But now he knows, so there’s really no reason to have to keep up the charade anymore.”

“The people of this pack were cruel to me when I was Luna,” I said.

“That turned around later. Before you left, you had risen quite high in public opinion,” Cathy said. “Besides, I think it would be a good shock for them to have. If they see you for how you really are, then they will know they misjudged you from the start. Maybe it will even teach them something about not judging others.”

“I’ve been hiding for so long…”

“You don’t hide in Moonglow, so why should you here?” Cathy asked. “Lucian knows now, so why not everyone else? Why not let you be your full self wherever you are?”

My full self? What would that even look like? Even in Moonglow, I had to hide certain things depending on who was on the phone, or when writing letters.

To be truly honest about everything at all times…

It was a new feeling, a new idea.

I didn’t hate it.

“It’s time to be your true self, Aria,” Cathy said. “You don’t have to hide anymore.”