#also im not sorry but rhys in the mafia is the only career

[separatist-apologist]

Right Where You Left Me

If our love died young, I can't bear witness

Summary: Six years after leaving his hometown for good, Lucien Vanserra returns to bury his father. Upon arrival, he realizes he left more behind than just bad memories.

Chapter 1: Exile

Read Chapters 1 & 2 here: AO3

Note: why work on current projects when I can have 80 WIPS all at once??

[pretend there is a graphic here]

Elain knew, the moment she saw that shiny SUV, that the last two years of her life were about to come crashing around her. Feyre was still inside, still in bed, but Elain was up early for cheer practice. Taking the three rickety, wooden steps to her loose gravel drive, Elain adjusted the straps of her backpack and hoped the idling car was just a fluke. Maybe the FBI was watching her father, she considered wildly.

The mirrored, passenger window rolled down and the lined, cold face of her boyfriend’s father appeared. Elain paused, one immaculate, white sneaker crushing the blooming marigolds dotted around her dilapidated mailbox.

“Get in the car,” Beron ordered, filling her body with a sinking sense of dread. Lucien told. He’d promised he would keep the secret and he turned around and told his dad. Elain wanted to tell him no, wanted to turn around and scream for her dad but what would he do? She hadn’t worked up the courage to inform her father of her mistake yet, couldn’t bring herself to shatter her image as his perfect daughter.

So Elain reached for the handle and slid into the leather chair, setting her back pack in her lap.

“I’d like to drive you to school today,” Beron offered mildly.

“Thank you,” she whispered, smoothing her blue and yellow cheer skirt over her thighs. Beron didn’t glance at her as he drove out of the trailer park she lived in. The homes had seen better days—everyone had, but that was before Beron Vanserra announced the car plant that the town had been built around would be going through “changes.” Changes, of course, meant layoffs, and layoffs meant the pension people like her father spent decades working towards were suddenly gone, replaced with a paltry severance. The auto industry was bailed out and the Vanserra’s continued to live in their gated mansion, but people like Elain’s father were left behind in a rotting trailer.

Feyre had managed to get a job at a nearby deli, helping butcher and slice meat at the too-young age of fourteen, sacrificing her childhood and any extracurriculars she might have participated in to feed their family. Nesta paid bills and negotiated with the utility companies when they didn’t have enough to keep the water or electric on, robbing Peter to pay Paul endlessly. Nesta somehow managed to keep everything going which left Elain to manage the house. Cooking, cleaning, routine repairs…and keeping their father from giving up completely.

Nesta couldn’t escape though she’d graduated the year before. She went to the local state school and came home on the weekends with cardboard boxes of cafeteria food she’d pilfered with her meal plan and to check her spreadsheet to see where they were. Elain knew Nesta had gotten a job as a waitress on the side in an effort to convince Feyre she could quit her own job but the extra money still wasn’t enough.

Elain would be next. She’d been accepted into community college and the minute that last bell rang, she had a job already lined up at a local bakery. Between the three of them, they figured they could pay off the trailer and convince their father to take a small, part-time job that would keep his lights on. Elain had overheard Nesta screaming at him to apply for government assistance for all the good it did. Their father loved his job working in the plant. Unless Beron was willing to re-hire him, he was never going to work again.

“Last week of school, huh?” Beron’s voice interrupted her thoughts, dragging Elain to the present.

“Yeah,” she agreed, tucking a buttery curl behind her ear.

“I heard you’re going to the community college. Congratulations, of course. Your sister…where did she end up?”

“State,” Elain murmured. Nesta had been accepted into Ivy’s, had given it all up to make sure she and Feyre didn’t die. Beron’s face didn’t betray his thoughts but Elain knew he thought it all beneath him. Thought her beneath him.

“Ah, right. Lucien was accepted into Yale. Did he tell you?”

Elain swallowed. Lucien. The only reason he knew she existed was the scholarship that sent Feyre and Nesta to the too nice private school he attended. Lucien, with his beautiful brown eyes and his wide smile…Lucien who could have had anyone he wanted and yet somehow wanted her.

That was all over. She could see it on Beron’s face.

“He did,” she admitted. She was proud of him, excited for him. Lucien wanted to go to school where his brothers had, wanted to prove he was as good as they were.

“Did he tell you that he’s decided not to attend in the fall?”

Elain glanced over at Beron’s cold, steely face. “No.”

Beron nodded. “He wants to stay and raise his baby,” Beron continued through clenched teeth. “He’s decided to take a job nearby cutting wood.”

Beron made it sound so filthy, the prospect of one of his sons doing manual labor.

“He didn’t tell me that,” Elain whispered, heart racing. “I would have told him to go.”

“Awfully hard to be a long distance father,” Beron snapped. Elain knew Beron would be angry when he learned she was pregnant and had begged Lucien not to say anything until she was so far along there was no going back. She was angry he hadn’t, that she was left to deal with his father alone.

Beron pulled to the curb a block from the looming castle-like building that housed the school she attended. “Lucien will be at Yale this fall, a single man dedicated to his studies. Lucien has a future outside this town and doesn’t need an ill-timed child standing in his way.”

Beron pulled the visor down, revealing several manilla envelopes. He handed them to her silently, waiting for her to peer inside.

One-hundred-dollar bills, each neatly clipped looked back at her. Elain’s heart raced. “Consider this eighteen years of child support in exchange for ending things with Lucien today. I don’t care what lies you have to tell him.”

Feyre and Nesta could quit their jobs, they could pay off that trailer…Elain swallowed hard. “He’ll never forgive you—”

Beron’s harsh laugh stopped her from saying any more. “He’ll never know. Heartbreak keeps a man from revisiting his past and we both know you’re never leaving this place. Take the money”

“And if I don’t?”

Beron’s eyes turned to ice in his skull. “I wonder if an impoverished teenage mother is even equipped to raise a child? I wonder if she possesses the resources to keep the child from falling into neglect…to keep the child out of the foster system? Hm? Don’t test me, Archeron. Do the right thing and take the money, get rid of that baby, and be a young woman.”

Elain blinked back her tears. “My dad…he used to work at your plant.”

Beron rolled his eyes. “You want me to give him his job back?”

“I do,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“And you’ll end things with my son?”

She nodded and Beron smiled, reaching into the console between them and tossing her another too-full envelope of cash.

“Consider it done.”

*~* 6 years later *~*

“Did you hear?” Arina Novak burst into Flour Power Cakery at five am, an hour before Elain opened, her emerald eyes shining with excitement. Blonde hair braided cutely off her pretty, tanned face and wearing a white sun dress patterned with dinosaurs, Arina was every kindergartner’s favorite teacher. That included Ivy, sitting at the front counter, eyes glued to her tablet. Arina ruffled Ivy’s copper hair before stepping around the empty glass case, flats clacking on Elain’s wooden floors. Arina knew all the gossip since she worked at the elementary school and always shared it with Elain.

“Tell me,” Elain said with a smile, popping another tray of cupcakes into the oven.

“Beron Vanserra is dead,” Arina said with a grin, not bothering to see if Ivy was listening. That name meant nothing to Elain’s five-year-old and never had. Beron had seen her in town more than once, strolling by with his pretty, young wife and had never once acknowledged her.

“Good,” Elain replied, surprised by how much relief she felt. For years, his threat of having her child removed lingered like a ghost, haunting her at night before she fell asleep. Beron’s money had financed her entire life—she’d skipped college altogether, taken that bakery job while helping Feyre graduate and get out of her their miserable town. When the owner suddenly passed away, Elain had bought the shop and the space above it, turned the second floor into a two-bedroom apartment for her and Ivy, and settled in. She’d never forgotten that day in his car nor did she believe Beron had, either. He could have yanked it all away if he’d wanted.

“They’re holding his funeral here according to that teenager he married. Apparently his ex got in last night.”

Elain swallowed. “Are they all coming back?”

Arina, outside of Elain’s sisters, was the only one who knew the truth of Ivy’s parentage. She’d never shared that information with anyone else. “Maybe. I’ll try and keep an ear out for you-know-who.”

For Lucien, who had done exactly as Elain asked that miserable afternoon. Blazing hot, unseasonably humid, standing in the open sun, Elain could still see herself lying to Lucien that she’d lost the baby and wanted to break up. He’d begged, had told her she was the only future he wanted and Elain had told him to forget her. To stop calling, to stop texting…he’d done it. The next day he’d turned up looking as handsome as he always had, grinning with his friends like she didn’t exist.

It was for the best.

That’s what she told herself, anyway. So much time had passed, Elain was sure someone else had snapped Lucien up and was daydreaming of a family with him. He would have been an excellent father.

“Thanks,” she replied, turning back to her baked goods. Arina stayed, chatting about other things in what Elain suspected was an attempt to keep her mind off Lucien, as if that were possible. It was as if Lucien’s genes had said copy/paste when it came to their daughter. She was his spitting image with her thick copper hair, her sun-kissed golden skin, her brown eyes that skewed that strange mix of orange. Ivy had his laid back nature even as a toddler, his wide, easy smile.

Arina walked Ivy to school every day so Elain could get through the breakfast rush without having to shut down for an hour. Grabbing a warm croissant, Arina smiled at the chubby cheeked. “You ready, monster?”

Ivy nodded. “Bye mommy.”

“Bye baby.”

Ivy hopped off her spot and flipped the closed sign to open. There was a small line waiting, her usual regulars coming back for coffee and something sweet. An older man held the door open for Arina just like he always did, and the pair took off down the street hand in hand.

She got through her first six customers by memory alone. She knew her seventh, too, a middle aged woman who worked in HR that liked her coffee drowning in cream. “Your usual—”

Elain froze at the sight of Eris Vanserra standing in a crisp, expensive suit. “I would be impressed if you knew how I liked my coffee.”

Oh God, she thought with terror. Eris glanced at the glass case, his eyes a match for her daughters. Had he seen her? Did he know her secret?

“Black coffee is fine…maybe a kitchen sink cookie for my mother, though.”

Elain nodded. “Eight fifty,” she replied. Eris swiped his card, reaching into his pocket for a ten-dollar bill he then shoved into her little tip jar. Elain made his coffee and wrapped up his cookie, sliding both to him with shaking hands.

“Thanks,” was all he said before striding out without a second glance back. She watched him through the glass windows of her store front, ignoring her next customer until he vanished.

“Feels strange to have those boys back,” Maureen, an elderly woman coming to collect a dozen cookies for her card group, was part of the same social class Beron belonged to, though much nicer. “Eris has gotten taller.”

Elain nodded. She had never known him well and didn’t want to start.

“Still,” Maureen pushed two dollars atop Eris’s ten. “After what Beron did to Amera…it’s nice to see him get what he deserved.”

There was a gasp from behind Maureen. Alice, her granddaughter, swatted the old woman playfully. “What an awful thing to say.”

“The truth isn’t always nice,” Maureen replied, taking her box of cookies. “You know that, don’t you?”

Elain nodded.

She knew that all too well.

Things slowed around ten and Elain cleaned up and began packing orders, grateful for some quiet in the wake of Eris’s intrusion. She doubted very much he knew anything at all or would think to look at her daughter too closely. She was stressing out over nothing. The Vanserra’s might descend on the town that birthed them but they wouldn’t stay. That gave Elain some relief and got her through lunch. Arina would bring Ivy back at three twenty and Elain would close up ten minutes later, done with the day and ready to spend the evening entirely focused on her daughter.

It was a quiet life, but it was hers. Bolstered by that, Elain had all but forgotten about Eris when the door jangled at three fifteen. Coming up from the back, Elain nearly vomited on the floor. How many Vanserra’s intended to visit her in one day?

Amera Vanserra, the ex-wife of Beron, peered around the small, cozy space with interested eyes. She made her way to the glass case, dressed casually in white shorts and thick strapped navy-blue tank top. Her long red hair—the same as Ivy’s—tumbled down her back in loose waves.

“My son said the cookie came from you,” she told Elain. They’d met, had spent time together. Elain was almost disappointed when Amera didn’t seem to recognize her. “I came to see what else you had.”

“There’s more if you get here early,” Elain explained at the sparse offerings. Amera nodded, hands folded behind her back.

“I’ll take the rest of the macrons, I suppose…and a strawberry milk.” “Good choice,” Elain replied, turning her back despite every cell in her body screaming for her to run. The bell to the door jangled and Ivy, right on schedule, burst through the door with chocolate smeared across her cheek. Arina was just behind her, guilty as ever for giving Ivy candy.

“Mommy mommy mommy! Do you want to see what I painted today?”

“Give me one second,” Elain replied, pressing the lid closed on Amera’s milk.

Turning, Elain watched Amera glance towards Ivy, her face revealing nothing. Ivy, blissfully unaware of the disaster unfolding around her, unzipped her backpack and yanked out a large, folded piece of paper with little, messy handprints all over it.

“It’s the kissing hand!” Ivy declared, showing the room. No one moved for a moment.

“How lovely,” Amera praised to the beaming little girl. “You should frame it.”

Ivy looked to her mother, bolstered by the praise. “In the hall,” Ivy said decidedly. Standing in front of the door, Arina crossed her arms over her chest, her expression cloudy. “Time to close up?”

Elain nodded. Amera, gracious as always, took her items and paid, leaving a twenty dollar tip in the jar. “My apologies. Have a nice day, ladies.”

Amera left, looking over her shoulder at Ivy one last time before hurrying away. Arina and Elain both watched, tuning out Ivy’s excited chatter. Arina locked the glass door and turned to Elain.

“Call Nesta.”

Nesta was a high-powered corporate attorney and, while helpful and terrifying in equal measure, was not the person Elain needed at that moment. Nesta was who she called when things were irrevocably broken. Grabbing her phone, she dialed a familiar number, put it on speaker, and set her phone on the counter.

“Who are you calling?” Ivy asked curiously.

“Hello?” A friendly, masculine voice answered.

“Rhys? Is Feyre there?” Elain asked, aware her voice was trembling.

“She’s at the gym. What’s up? Want me to give her a message?”

Arina and Elain stared at each other for a long moment.

“Elain? What’s going on?”

“Beron Vanserra is dead…and I need Feyre to come home.”

Rhysand paused. “Do they know?”

Elain swallowed, her voice a whisper. “His mom and brother came in today…they both saw her.”

“Give us twenty-four hours, Elain. And call Nesta.”

“Thank you,” she replied before disconnecting the call. Nesta, and everything she did, was above board and legal.

Feyre and Rhysand…Feyre had married into Rhys’s family business and had taken to it like a fish to water. Feyre was ruthless and Rhys was the mafia. She supposed, having grown up powerless, Feyre found comfort in now being powerful in a way no one could touch.

Elain didn’t care.

She’d have done anything to keep the Vanserra’s away from her daughter.

[Chapter 2: the 1]

“Elain!” Lucien called, jogging after his girlfriend down a crowded hall of people. She turned, soft brown eyes falling on him. He thought he saw a tiny spark of fear, gone so fast he must have imagined it. She smiled, pulling towards rows of bright blue lockers to wait for him. “Hey.”

He kissed her cheek, aware that any teacher who saw him try and do more would call his dad and there would be hell to pay.

“Hey,” she replied, sliding her hand into his. He squeezed.

“How are you?” he asked, thinking of the baby hidden beneath the tight cheer top she wore. Lucien was already mentally planning, thinking of what they’d need in that first year. He didn’t want her to feel like she had to work, wanted her to be able to focus on the baby and resting. He needed to ask his father for access to his trust and planned to that night. He’d use it to buy a house, to furnish what the baby would need and keep Elain comfortable for the first time in her life.

He wouldn’t replicate the failures of her father…or his own. Lucien suppressed his smile, practically giddy with excitement. He’d planned to ask her to marry him before he left for college so she knew he was serious about their future but with the baby, he’d wait a little longer and prove himself to her with the house, with the safety, with the promise that he could take care of them both.

It was the life he wanted, maybe a little sooner than he planned, but Lucien could roll with the punches. He’d take classes at the community college, he’d work at the local lumber farm, and transfer to the same state school her sister went to for night classes until he had his law degree. He had it all mapped out and figured they could live comfortably off his trust until he finished school. She could do whatever she liked in the interim which included being a stay-at-home mom. He let himself daydream a little about a brood of children and the sound of their laughter, of pounding feet and little cuddles in a bed he shared with her.

All the things he’d been denied as a boy.

That same burst of fear streaked over her pretty face. “Fine,” she told him but her expression and her tone made him uneasy.

“You sure?” he pressed. Elain couldn’t look at him, her eyes vacant and focused on something he couldn’t see.

“Yeah. Can we uh…do you want to meet in front of the school today?”

“Yes,” he replied, reassuring himself everything was fine. Pregnancy was hard and Elain was keeping up appearances, getting up early to finish the season as a cheerleader, staying on top of her studies, and running the house her father should have been in charge of.

“You haven’t told anyone, have you?” Elain asked suddenly, turning her wide doe-eyes on him.

“Nope,” he lied. He’d called his older brother for help the night before in the hopes Eris might help him with Beron. Eris had been unhelpful, as usual, urging Lucien to get rid of the baby and go to school and Lucien had hung up angry.

Elain kept her eyes on his face for a beat too long, as if she knew he wasn’t being truthful. He squeezed her hand and Elain smiled sweetly. “I’ll see you later.”

He left her outside her class with the sensation things were not right between them. He didn’t understand it and spent the rest of the day trying to talk himself out of the feeling. Things were fine, she was just tired. He was reading too much into her expression, he was looking for something wrong.

He’d nearly convinced himself when he strode out of the building and into the miserably hot day. His confidence vanished when he saw Elain waiting for him on the sidewalk just outside the school, arms wrapped around her chest, face visibly miserable.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her, his stomach and his heart plopped at his feet.

Elain wiped her cheeks, hiding her tears. “The baby…”

“Don’t say it,” Lucien begged miserably, his disappointment overwhelming. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I am,” Elain insisted fiercely.

“You did nothing wrong,” he promised, reaching for her. Elain skittered backwards and Lucien braced himself for what he’d known all day was coming.

“I want to break up,” she told him, her voice steady.

“No.”

Her eyebrows shot upwards. “No? You can’t tell me—”

“You’re just grieving, Elain,” he said, desperate for his words to be true. “We belong together.”

“We don’t,” she told him flatly, all hint of tears gone. “I don’t love you. This…this is for the best.”

“How is this for the best?!” he demanded, his hands shaking at his sides. “Elain, please—”

“Don’t do this, Lucien,” she whispered. “I don’t want you anymore.”

Her words were a knife to his throat, choking him. “I love you.”

She shook her head no. “Leave me alone, Lucien. Don’t call me, don’t text me, just…I need to put this all behind me.”

“Elain!” he cried, choking back the urge to cry. She turned her back to him and walked away. “ELAIN!”

He nearly ran after her, nearly shook her, fell to his knees and begged her not to leave him. Hell was real, he decided, and it was this. Watching her walk away, watching the future he wanted slip away…that was hell.

Lucien drove himself home, strangely numb by the time he reached the red bricked estate his family owned. His mother was waiting in the living room, knitting on the large, L-shaped cream couch. Beron strode into the room the same time Lucien did, glancing from his son to his wife.

“Everything okay?” his mother asked, glancing up at him.

“Fine,” he lied.

“I have a tour set up for you this weekend,” Beron told him. “Your brother is going to meet you at Yale.”

It wasn’t a question and Lucien, who had planned to tell his father he wouldn’t be attending, had no reason not to go anymore.

“Fine,” he repeated.

Beron stared for a moment before nodding. Lucien was tempted, for just a moment, to tell his mother everything. He wanted to share in his hurt with someone.

He went to his room, instead.

None of it mattered anymore.

*~* 6 years later *~*

Lucien hadn’t been back to Velaris in five years. He’d left the minute he’d been allowed to move on campus and hadn’t looked back. The pull had always been Elain and he knew if he went back, he’d be too tempted to seek her out, to look her up. As far as he could tell, she’d never left. Not that he was checking in on her…she’d hidden him from all her socials, had demanded he stay out of her life after they lost the baby. Lucien did as she asked and threw himself into his studies, walking in his brothers’ footsteps and getting a law degree. Eris had helped Lucien get a nice job working for an environmental agency and Lucien spent his time suing big corporations for violating the EPA.

Still, nothing had ever felt right after Elain. He was almost excited when he heard Beron died, not just because his father was a prick no one liked, but because it gave him a legitimate excuse to see her…to accidentally run into her, to invite her to coffee in the name of catching up and maybe get some closure.

Eris picked him up from the airport, silent as they drove. Lucien scrolled through his phone, wondering if his brother missed their father. Beron had been as mean as he’d been cruel and Eris had taken the brunt of the beatings until he was shipped off to college. Eris had been Beron’s protegee, though, and perhaps there was love beneath the anger.

“You alright?” Lucien finally asked when they rolled into town, zipping down the familiar main street lined with businesses that had existed long before him.

“I’m ready to be out of this place,” Eris grumbled. “How long you here for?”

“Just the weekend,” Lucien lied. His plans were flexible, depending on how his meeting with Elain went.

“Hm,” Eris mumbled, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. He didn’t say anything more and Lucien was grateful for it. He and Eris had never been terribly close though they were on good terms. Eris was likely thinking about getting back to the city and to his job.

Their mother was waiting in the foyer when Eris and Lucien arrived, a bright smile on her pretty face. Was she grateful Beron was dead, too? His mother had left the moment Lucien went to college and, regretfully, began dating one of Lucien’s professors. Beron had never forgiven her for it, remarrying a twenty-two-year-old just to be hateful in between endless legal battles to try and keep Amera from owning anything from his estate.

Arms outstretched, his mother pulled Lucien into a hug. Eris walked past them, vanishing in the winding halls of the house. “I’m so happy to see you.”

Lucien kissed her cheek. “Me too. Is Helion around?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” she said with a smile.

“Drinking or cooking?” Lucien joked. He liked Helion, in part for how happy the man made her mother. Helion was fun, he was laid back and if he’d ever yelled, Lucien couldn’t imagine it.

“A little of both. How was your flight?”

Lucien let his mother wind her arm through his, grateful to have an ally in the house that had haunted him as a boy. The ghost was gone though Beron’s presence lingered over the immaculate white walls and ornate wood fixtures.

“Totally fine. Very short.”

She took him to the dining room where a box of macarons sat. Lucien grabbed a green one and jammed it into his mouth. It was the first thing he’d eaten all day. Surprised by how good the pistachio and cherry flavor, Lucien asked, “Did you get this in town?”

“Old Ella’s bakery has a new owner,” his mother replied, her smile fading for a moment. “One of the Archeron sisters took it over.”

His heart picked up. Elain. It had to be Elain, she’d been so excited about that part-time job. Aware his mother was watching him, Lucien asked casually. “You’ve been there?”

“Yes. You should stop by. It’s lovely and Eris swears by the coffee.”

Lucien nodded, running a hand through his long hair. “Need anything? I’ll place an order.”

“More of these,” his mother replied, walking to the kitchen.

Lucien went through the motions that evening, beyond distracted at the prospect of seeing Elain despite his father’s funeral in two days. He barely slept, tossing and turning and running through a million worst case scenarios.

He was up at six am, walking through the warm summer air. It was too warm for jeans and he wished he’d pulled his hair off his face. Preparing himself for rejection, Lucien wound his way back to main street and to Ella’s bakery, renamed Flour Power Bakery. A small line waited in front of the glass door, pulled open so a small child, holding the hand of a blonde woman wearing a pink dress splashed with yellow flowers. Time seemed to slow as Lucien studied the little girl. She couldn’t have been more than five years old. Her hair was coppery gold and long, nearly to her waist. It hung in loose curls that reminded him of his mother. Face upturned at the blonde, the little girl’s russet colored eyes sparkled with laughter. Her skin was a light brown, warmed beneath the sun and Lucien was willing to bet it would darken considerably as the summer wore on…much like his own.

The baby… that’s what she’d said. She’d never elaborated, Lucien had filled in the gaps himself. Snapping to attention, Lucien realized the blonde was directly in front of him, green eyes blazing with open hatred.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she whispered, still clutching the oblivious little girls hand.

It was confirmation. He went to shove past her but the blonde was surprisingly strong. Lucien, unsure what else to do, fell to a crouch so he was eye level with the girl.

“How old are you?” he asked, working to keep his voice easy. Hiding behind the blonde’s skirt, she held up five little fingers.

“What’s your name?”

“Ivy,” she whispered.

“Ivy,” he repeated moments before the blonde kicked at him. Ivy. Five years old. Lucien stood, bewildered, to find Elain in the glass window with a line of customers waiting on her, her gaze fixated wholly on him.

“Go home,” the blonde ordered, stepping away with the little girl. Lucien didn’t speak, shell shocked and stunned. He’d just left, had never looked back, had never demanded Elain prove she was telling the truth…and Elain had stayed and raised his daughter without him. Turning his back to Elain and her shop, Lucien pulled out his phone to call Eris.

“Went to that bakery?” Eris asked by way of greeting.

“You knew?” Lucien demanded, stepping out of Elain’s sight.

“I’m not stupid. That kid has Vanserra red hair.”

Lucien ran a hand over his face. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Pretend you saw nothing and leave,” came Eris’s unhelpful response. “Get the blonde’s phone number if you must confront Elain.”

Lucien blinked. “You’re fucked, you know that? Of course I have to confront Elain. You wouldn’t want to know about a kid?”

“Hell no. She did you a favor, keeping that a secret. If you’re hell bent on getting involved, you need to file for paternity like, yesterday. Let me know if—”

“Get the paperwork started,” Lucien demanded, hanging up before Eris could say anything else that was offensive or stupid.

Elain might have robbed him of the first five years but Lucien would not miss another.