Switched Bride, True Luna - Chapter 40: Chapter 40

Emily
I’d worn silk armor before. And I had a feeling I would need it at tonight’s Pack event.
The dress wasn’t chosen for softness or appeal—it was structure. The neckline sharp, the color bold. A deep midnight blue that caught the light like the sea at night.
I didn’t ask Logan for approval. I didn’t need it.
When I entered the ballroom, the air shifted. It was subtle—but palpable. Heads turned. Not in mockery. Not pity. But in curiosity.
A few months ago, I wouldn’t have been invited to a diplomatic dinner, let alone seated near the Alpha. But now? Now I was his assistant. His fiancée. His scandal.
And something more dangerous. I was becoming his success story.
Logan was already there, speaking with two senior representatives from the Silverpine Pack. When he spotted me, he offered the faintest nod. Not possessive. Not cold. Just… certain.
As if he expected me to hold my own. And a part of me appreciated that.
I walked past a few lower-ranked nobles whose smiles twisted with polite tension. Their whispers didn’t sting the way they used to. They just hummed beneath my heels like loose gravel.
And I’d learned how to walk without slipping.
I took my seat beside Logan without waiting for permission. His hand brushed mine briefly as I adjusted my napkin. Warm. Intentional. Neither of us moved away.
The first course arrived—wine-poached pears and spiced greens—and the conversation around us flowed. Trade. Diplomacy. Schedules.
No one spoke to me directly until Luna Merel from a nearby Pack leaned forward with her wine glass and smiled too widely.
“I must say, Miss Blackwood, your... ascent… has been unexpected,” she said. “Though I suppose dormant wolves need success stories too.”
Her voice was honey-dipped steel.
I saw Logan’s jaw clench from the corner of my eye, but I kept my reaction in check. This wasn’t close to the first time I had heard back-handed complements or been pushed on my dormancy.
I met her eyes and said cooly, “Perhaps. But success doesn’t care about dormancy. And neither does competence.”
Around the table, the air thinned. One of the elders murmured something that sounded like approval.
Merel’s smile faltered and she covered it by taking another sip of wine.
I turned back to my plate, finished the bite I’d started, and didn’t say another word or pay her any attention.
Later, as dessert was cleared and the musicians began playing softer, Logan leaned slightly toward me, voice pitched low just for my ears.
“That was well handled. You didn’t need me to defend you.”
“No,” I said, turning my face towards him, our faces close enough that another inch and I could press my lips to his. “I never did.”
He didn’t speak again. But when I looked up, I caught him watching me—not like a man watching his political partner.
Like something else. Logan looked at me like a man starved; he looked at me like he did that night in the hotel.
And for a moment, the room disappeared. The music, the flicker of candles, the crystal voices and laughter. It all blurred at the edges.
All I could see was him.
I turned away before it could mean more.
As the event wound down, I slipped out before most of the others had risen from their seats. I gave polite farewells, passed through the side corridor, and didn’t breathe fully until the thick walls of the ballroom were behind me.
My heels echoed against the stone as I moved through the halls, passing portraits and moonlit windows. The air outside had cooled and I shivered without a jacket.
I reached the base of the staircase before I heard his voice.
“Emily.”
I turned. Logan stood at the top of the steps, coat folded over one arm, his tie loosened just enough to make him look beautifully rakish.
The look in his eyes stopped me cold—or rather, heated me back up.
I didn’t know what I was walking toward yet. But I walked back up the steps anyway.
He studied me for a long beat, his expression unreadable. Then he held out his jacket for me, refusing to take no for an answer.
“Thank you, Logan.” I said, slipping my arms into it and turning away before he could catch the flush in my cheeks.
When I turned back, he offered me a folder—plain, thick, sealed. I didn’t take it right away.
“What is it?” I asked.
The heat in his gaze cooled and his tone was back to business. Calm and direct. “It’s an offer, if you want it.”
My fingers closed around it slowly. It was heavier than I expected, like the weight of what it represented had soaked through the paper itself.
“For what?”
“To oversee Titanfang’s trade negotiation network,” he said. “Not just assist. Lead.”
The words didn’t register at first. Not fully.
“You already have a head of trade,” I said cautiously.
“I did,” Logan said. “He resigned this morning. Or rather—he was given the chance to.”
I blinked. “Because of me?”
“Because of negligence. You just happened to prove it before I did.”
I glanced down at the folder again, then back up at him. “Is this another move for appearances?”
“No.” Logan shook his head to emphasize his point.
“Then why me?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “Because they respect you.”
That made my breath hitch—but only a little.
He stepped closer. “And because I do too.”
I looked away. Because if I didn’t, I might’ve done something reckless. Like believe him. Like kiss him senseless.
He added, softer, “You’ve been doing half the work already. Quietly. Competently. Without recognition or support. I can’t fix what I didn’t do—but I can offer you something that’s yours. Without the contract. Without the press. Without me.”
Those last words hit harder than the rest. Without me. Was he drawing a line? Or offering freedom?
Maybe both.
I ran my fingers along the edge of the folder, grounding myself in the texture of it. It was real. The kind of real I used to dream about—before all of this. Before Logan. Before pretending to be part of something just to survive.
“I don’t want this if it’s just a distraction,” I said.
“It’s not.”
I meant to accept, but I couldn’t keep the next words from spewing out of me, “I don’t want to be given power just to keep me quiet.”
“Then don’t be quiet,” he said. “Take it and make some noise.”
That caught me off guard. I met Logan’s eyes again. This time, I held his stare. He wasn’t lying. There was no calculation in his expression. Just something quieter. More dangerous.
Respect. And maybe... something close to regret.
I didn’t say yes. Not yet. I just nodded once and tucked the folder against my chest.
“I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll accept it,” he said, not arrogantly—but with certainty.
I let out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Always so sure of yourself.”
“Not always,” he murmured. “Not lately.”
The quiet stretched between us again until Logan stepped back, the distance measured. “Goodnight, Emily.”
I turned as he walked past me, but his footsteps slowed just before the door. He didn’t look back, but his voice found me anyway.
“You’re not the same woman who walked into that hotel lobby, thinking silence was her safest weapon.”
I swallowed hard.
“No,” I said quietly. “I’m not.”
And I wasn’t.
I carried the folder back home to my room with steady hands. I set it gently on the dresser and stared at it for a long while, the light catching on the edge of Logan’s signature embossed in silver.
He hadn’t offered me a consolation. He’d handed me a small olive branch. Not the Luna title. Not the mate bond. Not a crown carved by someone else’s hand.
He offered me a future of my own.
Somewhere between whispered rumors and buried evidence, I’d stopped pretending to belong. And started to feel like I could.