Chapter 60
Emily
I’d worn silk armor before. And I had a feeling I would need it at tonight’s Park event
The dress wasn’t chosen for soliness or appeal it was structure e 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 poble. Heads turned. Not in morkery. Not pity. But in
A few months ago, I wouldn’t have been invited in a diplomatte diner, 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 Park. 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.
Twalked past a few lower–ranked nobles whose smiles twisted with polite tension. Their whispers didn’t sting the way ther 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 succes
signes 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 sotter, 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
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
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.
I turned. Logan stood at rakish
at the top of the steps, coat folded over one arm,
his tie loosened just enough to make him look beautifully
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.
