The True Luna's Forbidden Temptation - Chapter 44: Chapter 44

Analise.
My knees shake as I descend the steps, clutching the jewelry box to my chest. I feel like I'm in a trance, barely aware of the cold marble beneath my bare feet. I don’t bother to change clothes. I’m wearing a pair of white jeans and a white sleeveless shirt, marred with dust from the debris of the piano I broke, and speckled with drops of Tyler’s blood when I sucker-punched him.
I barely notice him walking up to me, meeting me halfway.
“Analise, what are you doing? Where are your bags? Your clothes?” His voice is surprisingly gentle. When I look at him, I see that his bruise has darkened, his nose noticeably broken. But unlike our marriage, his appearance can easily be remedied with ice packs and painkillers.
It takes me a moment to realize that he’s asked me several questions already.
“What did you say?” I ask.
He sighs. “I’m asking where your bags are. Didn’t you pack your clothes?”
I shake my head. "I’m not bringing my clothes. You can burn them if you want," I say flatly. "Or give them to Lorraine when she comes back. After all, we're the same size." I pause, letting the venom drip into my next words. "Apparently, we also have the same taste in men."
Tyler’s face pales beneath the bruising. "Analise, please—"
I step around him, continuing my descent. With each step I take, I feel like I’m breaking the chains that imprisoned me, freeing the real version of myself that was locked up underneath.
Vivian appears at the bottom of the stairs, her expression a perfect mixture of triumph and disdain. She has always looked at me as if I were vermin, someone who was way beneath her in the food chain.
She never hid her dislike for me before. She’s not hiding her happiness and satisfaction now that I’m leaving.
"Tyler, don't insist she take anything," Vivian says, her voice echoing up the staircase. "She came into your life with nothing. She should leave with nothing." Her smile is all teeth. "That's only fair, isn't it?"
My fingers tighten around the jewelry box. The weight of my mother's heirlooms inside it grounds me, reminds me who I really am.
Analise Emerald Lander McGregor.
Now is the time to claim it!
“Oh, Vivian,” I whisper, raising a haughty brow at her. “In all the years that I lived with you and Tyler, I learned to be frugal. I was trying to save money for us, so he could afford to pay the amortizations of this house and build his own company from the ground up. I never bought expensive clothes or accessories.” I narrow my eyes at her. “But now that I’m going back to my world, where I came from before I gave it all up for your son, those clothes won’t fit at all.”
She scoffs. “Go back to your world? You didn’t even have family! You were an orphan. Which orphanage did you grow up in again?”
I look back at her, surprised. “Who told you that I grew up in an orphanage?”
“Well, I just assumed. You introduced no family. You only had one friend, that lady from Hawaii.”
“I do have family,” I say. “I have a father. A stepmother, a stepsister, and a stepbrother.”
“If that’s true, then where are they? How come you never visited them?”
“Because my father won’t allow me to come home unless I break up with Tyler.”
I stare up at Tyler, who’s quietly listening to my conversation with his mother. When he hears me say that my father wanted me to break up with him, he stares at me, almost in shock.
Tears well up in my eyes as I am again reminded of everything I did to be with Tyler. It’s like our life together flashes before my eyes, and now, at the end of it, I cannot believe I did it all to be with him, but I could not do anything to save our marriage.
“That’s ridiculous!” Vivian exclaims. “Why would your father want you to break up with my son?”
I shrug. “He thought that a son of a stripper would never be good enough for his daughter.”
Vivian’s eyes widen. She looks like someone has shot her. I smile in satisfaction, knowing that I hit a nerve.
I give her a smirk before I turn toward the door.
Tyler hurries down the steps after me. "At least take some shoes, Ana. You can't leave barefoot."
I turn to him. "I'm not interested in any fucking shoes, Tyler."
I stride toward the front entrance, feeling the cold floor with my bare feet. Tyler follows, genuine worry creasing his brow. I would be touched if I weren’t too busy being infuriated, because I’m seeing genuine concern from him now—when it’s far too late.
"Where will you go?" he asks, frustration edging into his voice. "Let me at least take you somewhere. A hotel nearby. Please."
Tanya walks toward us, a glass of wine dangling from her manicured fingers. "Where exactly do you think you're going, Analise? You have nowhere else to go. We know you’re lying when you talked about your family a while back. Now that Tyler has left you, you are totally alone.”
“Correction, Tanya,” I say. “I left him. Not the other way around. And thanks for your concern, but I’m not alone. I called someone. He’s coming to pick me up.”
Tyler freezes. "Someone?" he echoes, his voice dropping dangerously. "Who exactly did you call, Analise?"
I say nothing, savoring the unfamiliar feeling of having the upper hand.
"Have you been cheating on me?" he demands, anger flaring in his eyes. "Is that it? Is that why—" He stops, a terrible thought seeming to strike him. "Was the baby even mine?"
The question hits me like a physical blow. The baby. Our baby. The child I lost while he was in bed with Lorraine. The grief and rage I've been suppressing rise up, threatening to drown me.
"You useless piece of crap!" I spit, raising my fist in the air.
I want to hit him again. I want to break his perfect nose a second time, make him hurt like I'm hurting. Make him bleed for what he's done. For what he's said.
But before I can swing, headlights flash through the windows flanking the front door. We all stop, our attention drawn to the sleek black limousine gliding up the circular driveway, its engine a quiet purr in the night.
Tyler freezes, stunned. His hand, which had risen to defend against my blow, slowly lowers as he turns toward the open door.
"What the hell?" he whispers.
Vivian and Tanya move closer, clearly mesmerized by the unexpected arrival.
"Are you expecting a business associate, Tyler?" Vivian asks, her voice uncertain for the first time tonight.
"It's probably Lorraine," Tanya suggests, though she doesn't sound convinced.
"Lorraine would have asked me to pick her up," Tyler says, still staring at the limousine as it comes to a stop directly in front of our door. “I’ve never seen her ride a limousine before.”
A strange calm settles over me. The fear and uncertainty that have been my constant companions these past hours dissolve, replaced by something that feels dangerously close to power.
I raise my chin, looking directly at each of them in turn—Tyler, Vivian, Tanya. The holy trinity of my misery.
"Goodbye," I say, my voice ringing with a haughtiness I didn’t use on them before. "I wish you luck with your miserable lives."
Vivian's mouth falls open. Tanya's wine glass tilts dangerously in her hand.
"My ride is here, you see," I add, relishing the confusion on their faces.
I turn my back on them and walk down the front step. The night air is cool against my skin, but I barely feel it. All I can focus on is the limousine waiting for me, its driver stepping down to open the back door for me.
Behind me, I hear Tyler calling my name, but it sounds distant, unimportant. I've spent six years listening to him; I’m done with it now.
I step outside, the gravel of the driveway rough beneath my bare feet. But I don't care. Every step takes me further from the life that nearly destroyed me and closer to my new life, my new beginning.
Closer to the stepbrother I lost.
The chauffeur stands by the open door, his face impassive. He nods slightly as I approach, a gesture of respect I haven't received in this house for years.
I pause at the door, a sudden thought striking me. I turn back one last time, meeting Tyler's stunned gaze across the distance.
"Tell Lorraine she can have my clothes," I call out. "But she can't have my jewelry. Especially those that belonged to my mother. She’ll know what I mean.” I give him a wink before I slip inside the limousine.
‘Damn! That felt good!’ I cheer myself in my head.
A familiar figure sits inside the limousine. For a moment, I forget to breathe, as my heart pounds loudly inside my chest.
“Hello, Ana,” he says. “It’s been a while.”