[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega Chapter 142: Lunch with surprises

The final pin was placed. The last hem was inspected. The tailor stepped back with a satisfied nod, murmuring sothing about lining options and delivery tis. Lucas didn’t wait for the closing remarks. The mont the pincushion was out of reach, he sprang to life—awkwardly, stiffly, like a deer trying to rember how legs worked—but it was movent nonetheless.

"I’m going to the car," he announced, already halfway toward the door, ignoring the look of horror on the assistant’s face as he brushed past a neatly arranged stack of swatches.

"Windstone is waiting."

He made it three steps into the boutique’s main hall before he heard her voice. Calm. Inevitable.

"Lucas D’Argente Fitzgeralt, if you take another step, I will have the store locked down and inform your husband that you ran barefoot into traffic to escape a fabric consultation."

Lucas froze, hand on the door, spine stiffening as though struck by lightning. "You wouldn’t."

She appeared behind him with terrifying silence, setting her tablet down on the counter like a weapon holstered for later. "Darling, I once smuggled a diplomatic letter in a hatbox while under siege. You think I can’t handle one runaway oga in designer shoes?"

Lucas turned slowly, caught sowhere between surrender and despair. "You kidnapped . Now it’s the ti for to break free."

Marchioness Fitzgeralt rely lifted one brow, unbothered. "Not under my watch."

She looped her arm through his with the iron grip of a woman who had tad three sons, two emperors, and an economic crash. "Co on. We need so bonding ti before you return and Serathine cos like a storm."

Lucas blinked. "You’re afraid of Serathine?"

"No," she said crisply. "I’m realistic. The woman once reorganized a wedding mid-ceremony because she didn’t like the seating plan."

"She also made a priest cry."

"She makes everyone cry. That’s why I like her. But she gets possessive. And if she thinks I’m trying to steal ti with you—"

"Which you are."

"—then she’ll throw into a diplomatic dinner with Dax and leave there to rot."

Lucas almost laughed. "You’re bonding with because you’re scared of your social calendar?"

"I’m bonding with you," she corrected, tugging him toward the waiting car, "because you’re mine now. And if I have to defend that to Serathine with a full itinerary and matching cufflinks, so be it."

Lucas looked at her, dry and flat. "I’m a person, not a handbag."

"You’re both," she said sweetly. "Now let’s get lunch. You need sugar. And I need to hear everything about how my nephew proposed while looking like he wanted to throw up."

"...He did not."

"Oh, he absolutely did."

—

The restaurant was the kind of place that didn’t have a na on the sign—just a single brass crest over a door carved from imported mahogany and guarded by a man whose suit cost more than most people’s monthly inco. Inside, everything slled like luxury: polished marble, aged wine, fresh flowers that had definitely never grown within a thousand kiloters of Saha.

Lucas sat across from the Marchioness at a corner table with a view of the inner courtyard, trying not to draw attention despite the fact that half the room was already side-eying their arrival. A few patrons tried to gloat a little too obviously, all smiles and raised brows, pretending to be surprised while staring at him like a rare fish pulled unexpectedly from the ocean.

He ignored them. Or tried to.

The Marchioness didn’t even blink. She ordered without looking at the nu and dismissed the hovering staff with a single nod, then sipped her espresso like this wasn’t the social equivalent of waltzing into enemy territory wearing diamonds and disdain.

Lucas picked at a delicate appetizer, chewing slower than usual.

"So," she said, casually but with the accuracy of a sniper. "Tell everything. I want the details. Did Trevor cry when he proposed?"

Lucas paused, fork halfway to his mouth.

Then he set it down. "He didn’t propose."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, the sa way Trevor’s did when he slled sothing off in a room. "Excuse ?"

Lucas wiped his mouth and leaned back, matching her posture. "Trevor didn’t propose. I did."

There was a full beat of silence, broken only by the faint clinking of silverware from the nearby tables.

The Marchioness set down her wine glass with the sa careful grace one might use to disarm a bomb. Her eyes didn’t leave Lucas’s face.

"You?" she asked again, softer now, her voice edged with a tension that had nothing to do with disbelief. "You proposed to Trevor Fitzgeralt?"

Lucas shifted, straightening his back with a small wince, the reminder of the past few nights not doing him any favors. Still, he t her gaze without flinching.

"Well," he began, dragging the word out like he was admitting to shoplifting in a cathedral, "Serathine used her charm, or her terrifying blackmailing abilities, hard to say, and got Trevor to be my partner for my Coming of Age Gala."

The Marchioness’s mouth twitched. "As one does."

"Things... escalated. Fast. Few weeks later we found out I’m dominant. Very dominant. And within the day, I was given a choice—either claim Trevor or wait for Caelan to send to Dax with a sparkling bow and a pre-written speech on how to be a good consort."

Her brows lifted, but she didn’t interrupt.

"I didn’t know Dax at the ti. And Trevor, well, he didn’t exactly rush to clarify that he wasn’t so lurking predator with a chain in one hand and a leash in the other."

The Marchioness gave a dry laugh, the sound light but laced with experience. "As one dominant does. I’m not surprised. And frankly, I understand why Dax is so butthurt."

Lucas opened his mouth, possibly to defend Dax, though gods knew why, but he never got the chance.

"Marchioness Fitzgeralt," a woman’s voice cut in with the casual grace of long-ti acquaintances.

Lucas turned his head.

And froze.

Standing beside their table was a woman in her mid-twenties, elegant in a way that said money first, breeding second, dressed to the nines in cream silk and muted golds, not a single curl out of place. The kind of woman whose perfu lingered in a room long after she left, along with her opinions.

More importantly, it was her.

The woman Trevor had married in his past life.