Switched Bride, True Luna - Chapter 43: Chapter 43

Emily
I could feel the spotlight long before we stepped into it.
Camera flashes popped like lightning across the entrance carpet as Logan offered his arm. I took it, deliberately, curling my fingers around his wrist the way I’d practiced.
We were here to show unity. Strength. Stability. All the things that photographs could suggest but real life rarely held still long enough to confirm.
The gala was opulent in the way only old money could be. Crystal chandeliers, mirrored walls, a four-string quartet tucked into the corner playing a classical music designed to sound both forgettable and expensive.
Servers wove between nobles with trays of wine and delicate hors d'oeuvres, all of which looked like they’d taste like the five thousand dollar a plate trays we’d be sitting down to.
Logan moved through the crowd, and I stayed close, offering polite smiles, shaking hands, accepting compliments that were really questions in disguise.
How lovely you look tonight, how is Titanfang treating you? Such a unique pairing, don’t you think? The words dripped with honey, but their eyes were sharp, searching for fractures.
I held my ground. Until Chloe arrived.
She swept in like it was her engagement party all over again. The dress was perfect, understated in a way that begged to be noticed. Her hair was styled in soft waves, her expression open and charming, her movements effortless.
She played the room like an instrument. One beat after another. Laugh here. Touch there. She floated past Logan, then lingered just enough to be seen and then move on like it was nothing.
It was a performance. And I knew Chloe well enough to see it for what it was.
The first time she appeared at Logan’s side, I told myself it was coincidence. There were dozens of nobles in the room, plenty of paths crossing. But then it happened again. And again.
Each time she chose to linger while I was turned to speak to someone else. Each time with just enough distance to deny what was clearly Chloe’s intention: to get close to Logan and win him over.
Three hours in, I turned just in time to see her lean in toward Logan, fingers grazing his arm, mouth tilted in an inside joke I would never be part of.
And Logan—he stepped back. But not fast enough.
The photographer near the wall raised his camera just as it happened. One shot. One frozen moment.
Chloe’s hand on his sleeve. Logan standing still. The press wouldn’t miss it. And even if they didn’t use it, I would still see it every time I blinked.
My grip on my champagne flute tightened.
I wasn’t going to make a scene. That would be exactly what Chloe wanted. So, I smiled, turned away from the dance floor, and walked the long loop toward the exit as if I had somewhere else to be.
I didn’t. Not really.
A server offered me a fresh glass of something sparkling. I shook my head and kept walking.
And Logan didn’t follow.
I told myself it was because he hadn’t seen me leave. That he was occupied. It didn’t mean anything.
And maybe it didn’t. But I felt something shift in my chest anyway—tight and cold and heavy.
Outside, the night air was mercifully quiet. The wind carried the scent of pine and summer and a hint of perfume that wasn’t mine. I exhaled slowly, letting it leave me.
I didn’t know what I was feeling. Whatever had passed between Logan and me in the quiet moments didn’t grant me ownership of anything.
Jealousy wasn’t supposed to have space in a contract. Neither was hurt. But both sat beside me in the car on the ride home, silent and uninvited.
I slipped out of the car the moment the driver opened the door and headed straight for my room. My shoes clicked faintly on the polished floors, echoing a little too sharply.
It was dim when I entered. I left it that way. The moonlight spilling through the tall windows painted silver lines across the bedspread, softening the edges of everything but the ache in my chest.
I peeled off the gown carefully, laying it across the back of a chair instead of tossing it aside like I wanted to. It wasn’t the dress’s fault, after all.
The steam from the shower helped a little, softening my muscles, coaxing the tension from my shoulders.
But it couldn’t wash away the image now seared into the back of my mind: Chloe’s hand on Logan’s arm. Logan not pulling away fast enough. The camera flash catching it all, freezing it into some mockery of an intimate moment.
It wasn’t the photo that hurt. It was the fact that I didn’t know if I was allowed to feel anything at all.
I wrapped myself in a towel and stood in the center of the room for a long time, not sure what I was waiting for. Maybe a knock. Maybe nothing.
When I finally moved, it was only to sit at the edge of the bed, towel clutched to my chest, hair still damp, the chill of the room settling across my skin.
I opened my phone without meaning to and found it immediately—an early leak of the photo, already circulating in through social channels.
The angle was perfect. Chloe leaning in, eyes upturned. Logan—still, unreadable. Neutral enough to be misinterpreted as either flirting and loving the attention, or holding out for more.
I stared at it for a long time, thumb hovering over the screen like maybe if I held it long enough, the moment would shift.
But of course, it didn’t. I turned the phone off and set it facedown.
I wasn’t angry with him. Not exactly. I wasn’t even angry with Chloe. I was angry with myself for hoping it would be different.
For starting to believe that the way he looked at me when no one else was around might mean more than just partnership or strategy or whatever this arrangement was meant to be.
For thinking that maybe I wasn’t just a shield against political fallout or a name on a document.
But for all the faults, I was still a Blackwood, and Blackwoods didn’t cry over things they couldn’t change. So I didn’t.
I lay back on the bed, hair damp against the pillow, and stared up at the ceiling, letting my thoughts circle around with no destination.
There were things I wanted to say. Questions I wanted to ask. But I already knew I wouldn’t, because I didn’t really want to hear the answers.
And because if Logan had something to say—if he cared—he would’ve come to say it.
Eventually, I turned off the lamp. Not because I was ready to sleep, but because I was tired of seeing the truth in the light.
I pulled the blanket up, curled onto my side, and told myself it was fine.
That I didn’t need him to follow me. I didn’t need anyone at all.
And in the dark, when I let myself imagine what it might have felt like to be chosen first—without conditions or contracts—I told myself to forget it.
And tried to convince myself that fine was the same as enough.
Just as sleep threatened to pull me under, I heard it.
The soft creak of floorboards outside my door. A shadow shifting beneath the crack. A pause. Then retreating steps...
Logan had come home, but he hadn’t knocked.
And I didn’t know what hurt more—that he’d been there… or that he’d left.