From Substitute Wife to the Don’s Queen Chapter 09
Gemma’s POV
I stared at the photograph, something in my mind slowly shifting into place.
A beach. Coastline washed out by afternoon glare. was in the crowd–fifteen, standing at the edge, still in wet clothes. A charity yacht event. The Hartleys had brought me to fill a seat. I remembered the sun being
merciless. Sand hot through my shoes. I remembered all of it-
And I remembered the boy.
No one saw the wave take him. I happened to glance
back. I saw his hands go under. I didn’t think — I just went in. By the time I got him to shore he’d swallowed a lot of water. Face gray, lashes salted, gulping air. Fourteen, maybe fifteen.
He opened his eyes. First thing he said: What’s your name?
I never answered. People closed in around him and I stepped back through the crowd and walked away. It felt like nothing. A small thing, already over.
Now I looked at the bottom corner of the photograph. A teenage boy with his back to the camera, face turned toward where I’d been standing.
“That’s Lachlan. Fifteen.” Catherine’s voice was steady.
“He tried for a long time to find you after that. He couldn’t.” A pause. “By the time he saw you again, you were already married to Sinclair.”
I gave the photograph back. Something heavy settled in my chest – not quite grief, not quite gratitude. Something that had no clean name.
Ten years.
I went to his room and waited.
It was well past midnight when footsteps came down the corridor.
The door opened. Lachlan came in with his jacket over his arm, shirt collar undone at the throat – the look
of someone who’d just handled something difficult. He glanced up, saw me, and went still in the doorway.
“How long are you going to keep avoiding me?”
He didn’t answer right away. He hung the jacket over a chair, moved to the window, stood with his back to the light. His face was hard to read. “You should be resting.”
“I’m right here.” I got up and crossed the room. “What are you running from, Lachlan?”
Silence.
“You got me out of that cellar,” I said. “You found a way to reach me every single day. You stayed up with me every night I couldn’t sleep – made sure I knew
someone was there. And now you’re hiding.” I held his gaze. “What was any of that for, if you were just going! to disappear like a coward?”
His jaw tightened at the word.
“I’m not a coward.” Low, controlled. “I just-” He stopped. Rerouted. “You’ve been through hell. I don’t want you to feel like I’m using that. Like I’m moving in while you’re down.”
“So you vanished instead.”
“So I waited.” He turned to face me. “Gemma. You’re still grieving. You just lost a child. You’re not healed. The last thing you need is someone pushing his way in.” His expression was calm too calm, the way it gets when something is being held very carefully in place. “I’ve waited ten years. Ten more won’t kill me.” I looked at him.
A boy going under in the surf. A man with a gun pressed to my husband’s temple. Hands straightening my blanket in the dark. A copper bird. A bunch of daisies. A stack of books. It all came together at once, pressing into my chest until I couldn’t get a full
breath.
I stepped forward and put my arms around him.
He went rigid – shoulders pulling tight, caught off guard – then, slowly, his arms came around me. Careful. Like he was afraid of using too much.
“There aren’t that many decades in a life,” I said, voice rough. “Stop waiting.”
I stood on my toes and kissed him.
Two full seconds where he didn’t move – I could feel him deciding whether to believe it. Then he kissed me back. His arms tightened, something long–restrained
finally giving, and he tilted his head down, one hand steady at the back of my neck. The kiss was slow and deliberate, like he was giving back ten years of things he’d never said.
He was the one to pull back. He looked at me, and his face was different – none of the chill he kept for everyone else. Something else. Warm. Kept under wraps for a long time.
“Gemma.”
“Yes.”
“Everyone in this city is going to know you’re mine.” His voice was quiet, unhurried, each word placed exactly where he meant it. “No one will touch you again.”
I rested my face against his chest. His heart was going faster than he’d let on.
So you do get nervous, Lachlan Rhodes.
Footsteps in the corridor – the housekeeper, moving quickly. Her face was white. “Don. Someone’s broken onto the grounds. Asking for a Hartley. The men couldn’t hold them.”
Lachlan and I looked at each other.
I already knew who it was.