Chapter 13

Chapter 13

I woke up in a warm king–sized bed in unfamiliar surroundings.

The room was dark with no lights on and the curtains pulled closed, but I could see daylight seeping through the cracks between the curtains. I took a deep breath, though it hurt my throat to do so. It smelled distinctly masculine in the room, distinctly like Andrew.

I could not yet figure out why the room would smell like him, but I closed my eyes and allowed myself to enjoy it for a minute before opening them again.

My eyes did not even get the time to adjust before there was a knock on the door.

“Ms. Blanchard, are you awake yet?” a polite, submissive voice asked from the other side of the door. “Yes,” I replied, though I still felt a bit disoriented.

A maid in a modest white tunic and gray skirt entered the room. She turned on the lights, revealing a color scheme of red, black, and brown. And fur, so much fur.

It was all oddly comfortable, yet still dominant and powerful. Even the golden bed canopy hanging above me suggested royalty and prestige. Whoever lived here was not one to be messed with, and no one would even dare to.

“How are you feeling this morning, ma’am?” the maid asked. She kept her head up to show that she was giving me her full attention, and yet her eyes would not quite meet mine.

“I–I don’t know,” I grumbled around a dry tongue. “May I have some water, please?”

“Of course, of course!”

The young woman–no older than I–scrambled over to the bedside table and poured me some ice water from a pitcher that someone must have set there. She held the glass out to me.

“Thank you.” I had to force myself to take sips, rather than gulping the entire glass down at once. “Would you mind telling me where I am?”

“You’re at the Alpha King’s mansion.”

My eyes widened. What was I doing in Andrew’s house?

I tried to remember what happened the night before. I could recall Bob attacking me, him attempting to rape- me, him choking me…then there was a light, and someone’s voice. Andrew’s voice! He must have rescued me. Did he see that Bob was my attacker?

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“Is there anything else I can do for you, Ms. Blanchard?” the maid asks me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I shook my head.

“No, no, thank you.”

The maid nodded.

“Very well. I will tell His Highness that you’re awake.”

I swallowed against the hard knot in my throat but said nothing. The thought of Andrew seeing me like

this…well, he had already seen me in my worst state the night before….I hung my head and forced back tears at the thought.

Another knock at the door pulled me from my thoughts.

“Come in,” I called out weakly.

Andrew opened the door and stuck his head inside.

“Good morning,” he said.

His eyes ran up and down me. Finding me decent, he opened the door completely and stepped fully inside the room. He was so impeccably dressed, even at this early hour–it was early, wasn’t it?-that I felt ashamed to be seen by him in such a state.

“Are you…okay?” Andrew asked, his voice filled with concern.

I did a quick examination of myself. There were a few bruises and scratches on my arms and breasts, and I was sure that I had some bruises on my throat as well, I probably needed to get my head checked for a concussion thanks to the way it hit the ground last night, but otherwise, I seemed to be fine, physically. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely sure.

How could someone be “fine” or “okay” after something like that?

Andrew’s brow crinkled, but he nodded and seemed to accept what I said.

“I know that last night must have been very traumatic for you, but did you by any chance see who your attacker was?” he asked.

Damn. So, he didn’t see that Bob was my attacker. What was I supposed to do now?

I had no proof that Bob attacked me, just my word against his. No one would believe me, the jilted, ex–convict, ex–girlfriend over the future son–in–law of the Alpha King. Besides, Bob had always been very skilled at disguising himself, so other than his smell, there would have been no way to identify him.

Unfortunately, scent isn’t exactly one of the permissible forms of evidence in a court of law yet.

That was all without mentioning that I was in Andrew’s house. That meant that I was in Lisa’s house, too. would never get away with accusing her perfect fiance of something so foul.

The unfairness of it all broke the dam behind my eyes, and tears started to fall.

“Crystal, are you all right?” Andrew asked, taking a step towards me.

I instinctively held my hands up to keep him away from me. As much as I loved the thought of his touch, after Bob’s attack, the thought of any touch–of any man’s touch–repulsed me at the moment.

As though he could read my thoughts, Andrew stopped mid–step and backed away from me.

“Are you all right?” he repeated, his concern cle

“Yes. I just…I didn’t get a clear look at my attacker last night. It was too dark.”

The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but I had to tell it. There was nothing else I could do, I cursed myself for that fact, but I cursed Bob even more.

Andrew’s eyes searched my face, as though looking for a reason to call me a liar, but when he couldn’t find any, he sighed and decided to change the subject.

“I’m glad that you’re feeling all right,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “but I still think that you should stay here and rest, at least for the day-”

“No!” I said immediately. I blushed at the shocked look on his face. “I mean, I have a lot to do, if I don’t want people to worry about me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. If I don’t show up at the bridal shop soon, Terri and the others will think that something horrible happened to me…

My voice trailed off as the truth set in. Something horrible had happened to me. I just didn’t know if I wanted anyone else to know about it.

“I could call them, if you’d like.”

“No, no. I just need to leave, immediately.”

I knew that I was brushing him off and probably being very ungracious, but I didn’t want to hang around Andrew’s home for too long when there was a chance that Bob could show up..

Andrew must have finally believed my urgency because, instead of arguing further, he simply nodded.

“I’ll have some clean clothes brought to you,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

He turned to leave.

“Andrew,” I said before I could lose all my nerve.

He looked back at me, a curious expression on his face.

“I mean it,” I continued. “Thank you…for everything.”

His smile was sad, but it still made my heart soar.

“Again, no problem,” he said. “I just wish that I could have torn your attacker limb from limb.”

The same maid brought me a red dress in the same style às the one that Bob had torn the night before. As I dressed, I wondered if it had belonged to one of Andrew’s deceased Lunas, I pushed the thought aside as l stuffed my torn dress under my arm and followed the maid through the mansion.

As we approached the front of the house, I could see through one of the enormous windows that the Civic was parked just outside the gate. Apparently, Andrew must have gotten someone to retrieve it from the bridal shop so that I would have something to drive home once I had recovered. I smiled at the thought.

I waved goodbye to the maid–whose name I learned was Talia–and rushed out the gate as quickly as I could. As much as I would love to stay and explore this stately manor, I couldn’t risk running into Bob.

As I pulled my keys out of my purse, I felt a dark gaze fixed upon me. I looked up and saw Lisa stepping ou a luxurious Rolls Royce, attached to Bob’s arm. Then my eyes fell on Bob’s.

The dark look he had fixed on me disappeared in an instant. He put on a polite and refined demeanor. Bob even managed to plaster a smile upon his face, though it did not quite meet his eyes,

“Hey, Crystal, what are you doing here?” His eyes shifted between me, the mansion, and back again. “Oh, are you a guest of Andrew’s?”

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