Chapter 129

• Lucas POV
• I’m crazy for doing this, but Aurora’s needs come before my own pride, before the jealousy that’s been eating me alive. Killian sits across from me at the kitchen table, his eyes wary, waiting for me to lay out whatever insane plan I’m about to propose. Emmi’s laughter echoes from her room where Aurora’s reading to her, and the sound grounds me, reminds me why I’m swallowing every instinct screaming to throw Killian out.
• “The entire time you were gone,” I say, my voice low but steady, “I felt it. That dull ache inside her, the emptiness. Nothing I did filled it, not love, not time, not even Emmi. Then you show up, and it’s not gone, but it’s... better. Enough that she’s not breaking every day.”