**Chapter 57 — A Woman Worth Wanting**
*I Ended Up Living Next Door to My Ex-Husband*
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"What happened last night... was all a mistake?"
Rebecca didn't know it in that moment, but Cedric could hear it himself — the slight unsteadiness in his own voice as he asked.
*She knows about the imprint. She must. So why did she come to me last night, and why is she standing here now calling it a mistake?*
He couldn't hide what that did to him. He wasn't capable of it — not right now, not with the warmth of last night still present enough in his memory that the word "mistake" landed like something physical.
Rebecca Twins.
One woman. One moment. And she could undo him entirely.
He swallowed past the numbness spreading through his chest and looked at her — her eyes wide and slightly frightened, her expression that of someone who genuinely didn't understand what she'd walked into. He resented that. He also found it heartbreaking. He couldn't decide which was worse.
"Cedric, I was so drunk last night. I don't even remember—"
He shook his head before she could finish.
"Let's go back."
He turned away. He didn't want to hear the word again. If she said it once more he wasn't entirely certain he could keep everything he was feeling from becoming visible on his face — and that, at least, was something he could protect.
He took his horse's reins and turned the animal around with practiced calm.
"Everyone will have gathered to see us off. We should get ready."
"Cedric..."
There was something uncertain in her voice behind him. Something that almost sounded like worry.
*She's sorry,* he thought. *Not the way I want her to be — just sorry for having to disappoint me.*
A bitter, quiet smile crossed his lips.
He turned back. Looked at her.
"Whether last night was a mistake for you or not — it doesn't matter." His voice came out steadier than he expected. "You don't have to feel guilty on my account."
"Really...?"
A small, unmistakable exhale of relief moved across her face.
"...Yes."
She fell into step beside him after that, the earlier stiffness easing from her posture. He watched it happen from the corner of his eye.
He had meant what he said. He wasn't lying to manage her feelings. But that didn't prevent him from noticing, with uncomfortable clarity, that some part of him had wanted a different kind of sorry — had wanted her to feel the weight of last night the same way he did.
She didn't. Or if she did, she didn't know it yet.
He walked beside her and let the silence be what it was.
Because the most important thing — the only thing that mattered right now — was that she was still here. Still walking beside him. Still, for a few more months at least, within reach.
He had not imprinted on her and survived this long by accident. He could wait.
---
The village had gathered in front of the hall to see them off.
"You owe us nothing, Devon." Cedric extended his hand. "It's the other way around, as it's always been."
Chief Devon clasped it warmly and shook his head. "The Twins family has sheltered our people for generations. If anything, I'm ashamed we could only offer such modest accommodations in return."
Beside him, Jacqueline stood with the particular posture of someone who has decided to be civil and is slightly annoyed at herself for it. She greeted Cedric first, then let her gaze drift sideways to me.
I smiled at her.
"Yesterday was one of the better days I've had in a long time, Jacqueline."
She looked away immediately, cheeks doing something she clearly didn't intend.
"We just had a drink after a day's work. There's nothing remarkable about that."
But when her eyes returned to me, the hostility that had been there at the beginning of yesterday was simply gone. Not replaced by warmth exactly — more like the space where hostility had been was now open, waiting to see what might fill it.
The other villagers were much the same.
"If you ever find yourself back at the Grand Duke's castle and wanting a change of scenery..." Jacqueline began, in the tone of someone making an announcement to the air rather than to anyone specifically.
"...you could come back to the village. If you wanted. Or not. Either way."
"I'd like that very much," I said. "Especially if there's more honey beer."
Laughter scattered through the crowd.
Several children came running forward then, their hands full of the dolls and wrapped sweets I had brought. Their horns — small, curved, catching the morning light — bobbed as they talked over each other.
"Your Highness, the candy is so good, thank you!"
"My mama said to make sure I said thank you properly!"
I crouched down to their level and reached out to gently touch one child's small horn — smooth and warm beneath my fingers.
"It's been a while since I've seen these up close. Princess Bianca is shy about showing hers, so I've been missing out."
The children dissolved into giggles, covering their faces.
Bianca, who had been standing nearby with dignified composure, immediately seized my sleeve and tugged me down to her level.
"When we get back," she whispered with great seriousness, "I will show you mine. And you have to tell me they're prettier than those children's. Promise."
She fixed me with an expression of non-negotiable expectation.
"I promise," I said. "A hundred times over, if you like."
Bianca's face broke into sunshine.
Around us, the quiet that had fallen over the crowd had a different quality from before. When I looked up, I found Chief Devon watching us.
"Something like this," he said, almost to himself, "would have been impossible to imagine with the Grand Duchess we knew."
He met my eyes when I looked at him.
"Children don't dissemble. And Princess Bianca doesn't follow people she doesn't trust." He paused, then glanced toward Cedric. "Nor does the person I trust most in this world vouch lightly."
Chief Devon was quiet for a moment, appearing to make a decision.
Then he bowed — slightly, briefly, but without condescension.
"I would like to bring your proposal about the welfare foundation to the village for a proper discussion, Your Highness. Would you allow us some time to consider it?"
It was the first time he had addressed me as the Grand Duchess and meant it.
I bowed in return.
"Take all the time you need. Whatever you decide, there will always be a place for you."
---
The carriage rolled steadily down the mountain, Bianca chattering from the moment the wheels began to move.
"I spent the whole night with the village children. There's a boy named Jeff — quite handsome, actually, and very articulate for his age—" She glanced between Cedric and me with barely concealed anticipation. "What about you two? Did you have a good night?"
The question landed in the air and sat there.
The atmosphere between Cedric and me was, to put it generously, complicated. The awkwardness was largely mine — I was still piecing together exactly what I needed to apologize for, and until I knew, I didn't know how to begin. Cedric, for his part, was communicating his feelings clearly through the medium of staring out the window in silence.
Bianca clocked it almost immediately and flicked an uncertain look between us.
Cedric spoke before she could say anything, his gaze still fixed on the passing trees.
"It was a good night." A beat. "As close to perfect as I can remember."
He reached up and loosened his tie — a slow, deliberate movement.
"The only difficulty," he said, very quietly, "was finding out afterward that it was all a mistake."
Bianca blinked. I looked at my hands. The carriage continued down the mountain in silence.
---
In the demon world, at the same hour, the Monter family home lay quiet and dim.
Adrian sat at his father's bedside, holding a hand that had once been strong enough to bend steel and was now papery and still. The face on the pillow — once commanding, once full of the particular authority of a man used to being obeyed — had been worn down to something frail and unfamiliar.
Adrian wiped the cold sweat from his father's forehead.
The door opened softly behind him. His older brother Elliot stepped in and placed both hands on Adrian's shoulders.
"You came."
"Yes. You're heading back to the Twins estate today?"
"This afternoon." Adrian's voice had no weight behind it. "I'm sorry to leave Father with you and your wife."
Elliot smiled — not the kind that meant things were alright, but the kind that meant he had made peace with them not being so.
"I don't think it will be much longer, Adrian. We should both be prepared for that."
Adrian looked at his father's face.
"Let's speak in the hall," he said quietly.
---
The corridor was empty, the night air moving gently through the open pillars. The brothers stood side by side in the kind of silence that only exists between people who know each other well enough not to fill it unnecessarily.
Elliot broke it first.
"It's time to make a decision for the family."
Adrian's jaw tightened.
"Father is still—"
"Father would want this. You know that."
Adrian looked down at the railing beneath his hands.
"He gave everything to protect the Monter name," Elliot continued. "Every sacrifice he made, every choice he endured — it was for us. For what we could become."
"Elliot—"
"Adrian." Elliot gripped his brother's arm — firm, certain. "You have to become the head of this family."
The words fell between them and didn't move.
"Your power alone could not only maintain what we have — it could take us further than we've ever been. That's what Father wants. What I want. What every person who has sworn to this family is hoping for."
A faint tremor moved through Adrian's violet eyes.
He turned away.
"I don't want to come back to the demon world. Not now."
And there — behind his closed expression, in the silence that followed — a flash of red hair. A bright, unguarded smile.
"There's something I want to achieve first. In the human world. Something worth the cost."
The bitterness in his own voice surprised him slightly.
Elliot looked at him for a long moment, reading what Adrian hadn't said.
"She's become that important to you."
Adrian said nothing. Elliot took that as the answer it was.
A small, knowing exhale.
"Then that's all the more reason," Elliot said, his expression shifting into something harder and more purposeful, "to become head of the Monter family."
"Brother—"
"If you carry that title, we become the most powerful of the mixed-blood noble houses. Perhaps the only house—" The corner of his mouth rose slightly. "—that could stand as an equal to the Twins."
Adrian went very still.
Something moved across his face — a wave, deep and sudden, as though a stone had been dropped into water that had been undisturbed for a long time.
Elliot met his eyes and held them.
"Acquire the power, Adrian." His voice was quiet now, and certain. "And then go take what you want."
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