Chapter 199. Dinner

June POV

I exhale slowly as I place the plate in front of Lucien.

For half a second, our eyes meet.

Then I look away.

It’s automatic—like touching something that once burned me and yanking my hand back before the pain can return. I don’t trust my face to stay neutral if I look at him too long.

I turn—and Hermes is coming toward the table with a bottle of wine in his hand.

His jaw is tight, too tight.

He’s calm on the surface, but I know that look. I’ve seen it before. That is the look of a man holding back a storm because someone he loves asked him to.

I asked him to.

And somehow, that makes my chest ache.

Because I was the one Lucien hurt. I was the one who ended up on a hospital floor, begging. I was the one who almost lost our baby because of him.

But Hermes is angry for me.

Fiercely. Possessively. Like my pain lives inside his ribs too.

And as good as it feels to be defended that way… I don’t wa