Switched Bride, True Luna - Chapter 61: Chapter 61

Emily
I leaned against the railing, watching the sky bleed slowly toward midnight.
Stars blinked through thin clouds, distant and uncaring. Unlike the ballroom full of wolves behind me, the stars didn’t ask questions or judge what they didn’t understand.
Michael’s voice still rang in my ears. Not what he’d said, but what he hadn’t.
It was the absence of an apology. The quiet edge of entitlement. As if we were still pieces on a board, and I should be flattered to have been considered.
I didn’t know what hurt more, his casual smugness or the way part of me had still wanted him to regret it.
It wasn’t personal. The words meant nothing. But they’d sunk in like a splinter anyway.
The door behind me clicked open, then eased closed.
Logan’s energy was different from anyone else’s. It was more palpable somehow, heavier without being oppressive. He moved like he didn’t need to announce himself, like the room shifted for him whether he wanted it to or not.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low.
I didn’t want to lie, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell the truth either.
“He’s courting Dawnhearth’s heir,” I said instead.
Logan moved to stand beside me, close but not touching. “I noticed.”
There was no jealousy in his tone. No accusation. Just quiet observation, like he was letting me lead again.
“I didn’t expect it to shake me,” I admitted. “I thought I was past all of it.”
“And now?”
I exhaled. “Now I feel like I’ve been holding onto the idea of being over him longer than I actually have been.”
Logan didn’t press, but his presence was solid beside me. Grounding. A quiet reminder that I wasn’t standing here alone.
“He said our match was ‘strategic.’” I said with a snort.
Logan’s jaw tightened. I saw it in the way his shoulders tensed. “Is that what you think it is becoming?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I whispered. “What we started was about revenge. Power. Survival. But lately…”
He turned then, slowly, and I felt the weight of his gaze land on me.
I kept my eyes down or I wouldn’t be able to say the truth, “…lately it doesn’t feel like strategy,” I finished.
The wind picked up, brushing cold fingers across my skin. I shivered once, and then I felt his jacket, warm from his body, settle over my shoulders.
I glanced at him, surprised, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring out at the tree line, jaw tight, hands tucked in his pockets like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to touch me or keep his distance.
“You don’t owe me anything, Emily,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“But I’m not letting him, or anyone else, reduce you to a move on a board.”
The words landed differently than I expected. Ther was something close to respect there. Loyalty.
We stood there in silence again, just long enough for my mouth to voice my thoughts before I meant to.
“Do you ever think about the future?”
He turned slightly. “What do you mean?”
I hesitated but decided to lay it all out there. “About what comes after this. After the contract ends.”
A beat passed. “You know what’s in the contract,” he said carefully. “We’re not meant to build anything beyond it.”
“No children,” I said. “No bond.”
“No expectations,” he added, voice unreadable.
I nodded. “It just hit me tonight. Seeing Michael. Thinking about what I used to want.”
He looked at me, then, truly looked. “And what do you want now?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I think I want the chance to find out.”
Logan
I didn’t go back inside. I waited until the noise of the gala dulled into something distant and unimportant, and then I drove home alone, the image of Emily’s smile burning behind my eyes.
She had left the gala a couple of hours earlier but still had a few Alphas I hadn’t spoken to so I stayed.
But when I got home I couldn’t sleep.
I told myself it was the late hour or the stack of reports waiting for my review, but that was a lie I didn’t bother believing.
The truth was simpler: I couldn’t get Emily’s face out of my mind.
Not the polished version from the fundraiser, all high cheekbones and practiced charm. Not the public figure who knew how to make a microphone fall quiet with one line.
It was the version of her she gave to her ex. To Michael.
I had to force myself not to call up a background file on him. I already knew more than I wanted to: beta-born, childhood sweetheart, strategically groomed by her father as a future match.
He’d been her whole world once. And then, he shattered it without a second thought. I remembered look of betrayal and hurt of her face at that hotel.
Still, when I’d seen them speaking tonight, it hadn’t looked like animosity. It had looked like... a shared memory.
I paced the edge of the sitting room, the fire flickering low behind me. The house was quiet this late, and I tried to be quiet. My footsteps sounded loud even to my own ears, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
The glass in my hand was long empty. I hadn’t bothered pouring another. I didn’t need more reasons to lose control.
I wanted to knock on her door. Ask if she was awake. Ask if she was thinking about him. About us. About whatever it was we were doing.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I played out every version of that conversation in my head. In one, she smiled kindly and said I was overreacting. In another, she told me I had no right to ask.
And in the worst one, she told me she still loved him. Wanted to patch things up with him.
I ran a hand through my hair, growling low under my breath. What was wrong with me? This wasn’t supposed to matter. She wasn’t supposed to matter like this.
We started as a contract. A merger. I’d told myself from the beginning that emotion couldn’t touch it. That we could build something useful, powerful, and maybe even learn to like each other.
But then I started looking at her as more. She started to look at me like she saw something more too. Like maybe she could want me. And gods help me, I wanted her in return.
But tonight reminded me that wanting wasn’t the same as having. And I didn’t know if I’d ever be the kind of man she’d give herself to completely.
A quiet ringing broke into my spiraling thoughts. It was my phone.
“Julian?” I answered.
“Apologies,” he said smoothly. “Didn’t realize you were still up. I expected to leave a message.”
“Clearly you did,” I muttered, “What is it?”
“An early version of next week’s media monitoring report. Something... interesting came up regarding public sentiment after tonight’s event.”
My phone pinged with an incoming email. I opened it and skimmed the attachment.
It was a side-by-side image of Emily and Michael in conversation. And me across the room, jaw clenched.
It looked like love a triangle. A story waiting to be told.
“The press is circling,” Julian said mildly. “Would you like me to draft a response?”
I didn’t answer. I was too busy staring at the photos, wondering how much of what I was feeling would show up in my expression if someone zoomed in.
Too much.
“Leave it,” I said. And hung up, my patience at its end for men who circled my… Emily.
I sat down slowly, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, my thoughts returning to her again.
Emily hadn’t chosen Michael. But she hadn’t chosen me either.
And maybe the part that burned most wasn’t jealousy. It was the not knowing if she ever would.