Chapter 293 My Reputation, My Scar

Chapter 293: Chapter 293 My Reputation, My Scar

Emilia’s POV

The room went dead silent. Four faces snapped toward me, and the smug little smiles curdled into something closer to panic.

"Don’t stop on my account," I said, my voice cool and even. "You were having such a good time."

Nobody breathed.

"Let me make something very clear." I looked each of them in the eye, one at a time. "I’m your Luna. Whatever you think you know about my past, it isn’t up for debate at the coffee machine. You want to gossip about a headline, do it on your own time, in your own home, where I don’t have to hear my name in your mouths."

One of them opened her mouth. I didn’t let her.

"This company hired you to work, not to run a rumor mill. If your jobs leave you enough spare time to dissect my private life, then clearly you don’t have enough work. That’s easily fixed. And if any of you think you’re irreplaceable, I’d remind you there’s a line of people out there who’d kill for your desk. Now get back to it."

I turned and walked out before any of them could find their tongues.

In the elevator up to the ninth floor, my phone buzzed. A text from Scott Hanson.

[I saw the news. None of it sounds like you. If you need anything at all, I’m here.]

I stared at it, then locked the screen without answering. That wasn’t a door I could afford to open.

It buzzed again. Tiffany.

[Emilia don’t you DARE let this get to you!! We all know it’s garbage. Sebastian is going to bury whoever did this, I promise.]

Then Mila.

[Sweetheart, hold your head high. You are a Simons now, and we take care of our own. Let the wolves howl. It changes nothing about who you are to this family.]

Something loosened in my chest. The fog of anger and dread that had wrapped around me since Lily’s call started to thin, then quietly drift apart. I wasn’t standing in this alone. Not anymore.

By the time the doors slid open, my hands had stopped shaking.

I pushed into the secretary’s office. Fynn looked up, and there wasn’t a trace of surprise on his face. He’d seen it too. Everyone had.

"Is Sebastian in?"

"He’s inside," Fynn said quietly.

I walked into the president’s office without knocking, crossed the room, and stopped in front of his desk. For a moment I just stood there with my head down. Then I said, "I’m sorry."

Sebastian sighed. He got up, came around the desk, and settled his hands on my shoulders. "Why are you apologizing?"

I lifted my head and met his eyes, mine hot and red-rimmed. "Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it."

"I’ve seen it," he said, flat and certain. "And I don’t think you owe an apology to a single soul."

"You’re going to catch hell because of me. There’s a whole crowd out there waiting to watch you fall on your face."

"Let them wait." He didn’t so much as blink. "I’ve never lost a night of sleep over a scandal, Emilia. And trust me, the ones tied to my name go a lot further back than today."

"But I still feel awful about dragging you into this," I said, not quite able to look at him. "By now half the pack probably thinks you’ve lost your mind, marrying a woman like me."

"I couldn’t care less what the pack thinks of my marriage." Sebastian’s voice didn’t waver. "Who I take as my mate is nobody’s business but mine. What matters is that I know exactly what kind of woman you are, Emilia."

Something in my chest cracked wide open, and before I could stop it the tears I’d been swallowing all morning spilled over. I hated that they did. But his trust, that quiet, unshakable certainty in me, was the one thing I hadn’t known I needed until he handed it over.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Don’t thank me. Don’t you dare." He reached up and brushed his thumb across my cheek, wiping the tears away, and his mouth tugged into something almost like a smirk. "You know, you’re getting soft on me. All those years people tore you apart and you never shed a single tear. Chin up, jaw set, tougher than half the Alphas I know. Now look at you, falling apart in my office over a few trashy headlines."

A laugh burst out of me, wet and ridiculous. "Oh, shut up."

"I’m serious." He tilted my chin so I had to meet his eyes. "Every time you cry, it does something to me I don’t have a name for. So do us both a favor and stop. If you’re not hurting, I’m not hurting. I’ll handle this."

"And how exactly do you plan to handle it?" I sniffed, swiping at my face with the back of my hand.

"Simple. I find out who fed the press this story, then I put the truth out there myself."

My whole body went cold. "The truth. You mean the reason I signed that agreement with the Lind family."

"Yes."

"No." The word snapped out of me before I’d even thought it through. "Absolutely not. You can’t."

"Why not?"

I felt the tears threaten again, and this time they came from somewhere much older and much darker. "Because that part of my life left a scar I’ve spent years learning to live with, Sebastian. It’s cost me enough already. I’m not ripping it open for the whole world to gawk at, not even to clear my name."

For a moment he just looked at me. Then he pulled me in, one hand cradling the back of my head, and I let myself sink into the solid warmth of him. Minty and cedar. Steady.

"I’m sorry," he murmured against my hair. "I should have asked before I went charging in. I wasn’t thinking about what it would cost you. Forgive me."

I pressed my face into his shoulder and let out a shaky breath. I was so tired. One disaster after another, none of them giving me a second to breathe. If it were only my reputation on the line, I could take it. But it wasn’t just mine anymore. It was his too, and that was the part that gnawed at me.