Mated To The Crippled Alpha Chapter 390: I Want to Marry Him Properly

Watching soone as capable and composed as Damian fold himself onto the floor like that made deeply uncomfortable. I stepped forward before Lewis could say anything. "Damian, please don’t. I know you were backed into a corner. Get up."

He lifted his eyes to Lewis instead, still on his knees, his face wet. Lewis looked down at him without expression, the silence between them carrying everything unsaid.

"You knew what Elena ans to ," Lewis said finally, his voice flat and cold. "You knew, and you still did it."

"Mr. Lewis, I’m sorry."

"Even if you were certain Yael wouldn’t hurt her do you think I could have lived with the uncertainty? If sothing had happened to her, if she had died " Lewis stopped. Sothing moved briefly behind his eyes before the ice settled back over it. "I can forgive a lot of things, Damian. But not this. Not when it cos to her. Be grateful she walked away unhard, because if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation."

He reached into his jacket and produced a folded check, holding it out. "You’ve been with for years. I’ve already arranged for your sister’s placent at a good school with her ability, she’ll do well, and Aunt Amber and I will make sure of it. Take this. Start over sowhere you actually want to be."

I glanced at the check. One hundred million. Enough for a house, a life, a fresh beginning in any city he chose. Lewis had always paid him well this was sothing different. This was a closing of the book between them, generous and final at once.

Damian shook his head, and the motion was almost desperate. "Mr. Lewis, please don’t send away. I only want to be beside you and Mrs. Riley. I swear on everything I will never put her at risk again."

"Once trust is gone, the position becos unnecessary." Lewis’s voice didn’t waver. "I understand why you did it. That doesn’t change what it cost. Your injuries are serious focus on healing. And you’ve always liked flowers, haven’t you? Open a shop. Find soone worth building a life with. Have sothing quiet and good."

Damian, who I had never once seen crack not in crisis, not when facing real danger broke down completely. He cried the way people only cry when they’ve run out of anything else to offer. "Mrs. Riley, everything I have I owe to Mr. Lewis. My sister is alive because of him. I’ve done too much wrong and not nearly enough right. Please say sothing. I never wanted to hurt you. I was forced. I swear I was forced."

I looked at Lewis helplessly. We both knew I was the only variable that mattered here. Lewis’s position was immovable when it ca to my safety but I was the one standing in front of him.

I cleared my throat. "Well. Since Damian is so eager to be useful why not let him stay? Personally, I have always respected the quality of his slap."

Damian’s head ca up fast. "Mrs. Riley, I will slap absolutely anyone you point at."

Lewis exhaled a long, resigned sound. "Get up. Heal properly first, then co back."

Damian was on his feet before Lewis finished the sentence, a smile breaking through the wreckage of his face. "Thank you, Mr. Lewis." He held out the check. "Here."

"Keep it." Lewis’s tone allowed no argunt. "Consider it paynt for your life. And if you ever attempt sothing that reckless again without my permission, we’ll have a very different conversation."

I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. He couldn’t soften anything even slightly, could he? Damian accepted the check with both hands and imdiately launched into a promise to follow every single piece of dical advice until he was fully recovered.

We left him there, already looking more like himself.

Outside the hospital, Riley and Harlan’s situation remained its own specific kind of chaos but nothing critical, nothing that couldn’t be survived. For , the simple fact of everyone still breathing felt like more than I’d earned.

Lewis and I went ho. For the first ti in what felt like months, I didn’t have to brace for an interruption. I had him apply the dicine to his back while he lay face-down on the bed, and I worked carefully around the edges of the wound, taking my ti.

"Carl. Let’s go back to Snowville."

The Morrigans would be returning soon. Malcom couldn’t resurface yet there were too many pieces still in motion. But Grandma’s ashes needed to be laid to rest in the family tomb, and I wanted to be there for that. Whatever she had done, whatever tangled legacy she’d left behind, she had still been mine. Snowville had been my ho for twenty-eight years, and sowhere beneath all the grief and history, I missed it.

"Okay," Lewis said simply.

I set down the dicine and looked at the back of his head. "Carl. Let’s get married."

I didn’t want to spend any more ti waiting on circumstances to align. Wisteria was gone. The Blackwell feud was finished. The only thing I actually wanted now the one thing I had been circling around for what felt like a lifeti was him. I had pushed for the certificate before with my own reasons driving it. But this was different. In another life I hadn’t gotten the chance, and the weight of that had never fully left . This ti, I wanted to do it properly. I wanted the whole thing.

Lewis turned his head and smiled at unhurried, warm, completely certain. "Alright. I’ll follow wherever you lead."

I leaned down and pressed my lips to his neck. "Two kids."

"Three," he said imdiately.

Whatever the future was going to look like, we were going to et it together and enjoy every mont of getting there.

We stayed in Jaford a few more days while Lewis’s back continued to nd. By the ti we were ready to leave for the airport, his movent had eased enough to travel comfortably. We were heading toward the gate when I heard it the unmistakable sound of wheels moving at a speed that suggested either ergency or Riley.

I turned. From across the terminal, Riley was sprinting behind a wheelchair, sweat already on her face, Harlan’s hair blown completely sideways by the velocity.

"Janice, are you trying to kill again?!"

I couldn’t help laughing. "Slow down, we have ti!"

Riley hit the brakes so hard the wheelchair nearly tipped. She bent forward, catching her breath. "We made it. Bla Harlan he had stomach issues right before we left."

Harlan’s face went red. "You don’t announce that to people! And it was your cooking that did it. Whatever you made before we left turned my insides against for the entire morning. You used to take such good care of my grandfather and now you’re feeding things that should co with a warning label. Are you doing this deliberately?"

He was genuinely starting to wonder. He still had no idea that the attentive, capable wife he rembered had been replaced by a woman whose entire relationship with cooking could be summarized as raw ingredients, rendered technically edible. The gap between his expectations and reality was doing a lot of quiet damage.

Riley ignored him entirely and turned to , pulling into a tight hug that said everything without words. "Take care of yourself. Call for anything. I don’t care where you are I will co."

I held her back just as hard. Having soone like her in my corner what was there even to regret?

"I’m getting married," I said when we pulled apart. "When the invitations are ready, yours goes out first."

Her face lit up completely. "First one. Promise ."

"Already promised."

"And I want to be your bridesmaid."

Harlan made a sound of disbelief. "You’re already married."

"Then I’ll get divorced before the wedding."

Silence.

I smiled at them both. "Whatever your status is by then, you and Whitney are my bridesmaids. That’s already decided."

Riley’s expression shifted into sothing warm and soft and a little bit mischievous all at once. She held out her hand, pinky extended. "Seal it properly."

I linked mine with hers, and we stood there for a mont two people who had found each other on the strangest, most unlikely road sharing a smile that carried more relief than either of us could have put into words.

"Be happy," she said.

"You too."

Lewis and I turned toward the gate. Behind us, I could hear them starting up again.

Harlan’s voice dropped lower. "Janice, are you keeping sothing from ?"

"Yes," Riley said serenely. "I have ten very handso n waiting for . The mont you’re out of the picture, I’m going straight to them."

"Janice."

"Stop shouting. You look ridiculous."

A pause. Then Harlan’s voice, quieter stripped of its bluster, just tired and honest. "Janice. Stop joking around. Just co ho with ."

Lewis and I were nearly through the gate when I heard quick footsteps behind us and turned to see Damian, still a little pale, moving faster than soone in his condition probably should.

"Mr. Lewis. Mrs. Riley." He caught up, slightly breathless. "Wait for ."

I thought of the mont Riley and I had separated in our soul states two people standing at a crossroads with no certainty about what was waiting on either side. But this ti we were walking in opposite directions with our eyes open and our faces turned toward sothing good. This ti, we were walking toward happiness.

And this ti, we were smiling.