My Unchosen Ex Chases Reborn Me (Soren and Fiona) novel Chapter 82

Chapter 82 Thunderstruck

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Serena felt as though the heavens had split open and hurled thunderbolts straight into her heart.

“Please go back, Serena.” Mindful of propriety, Soren pivoted the moment the words left his mouth.

“If Fiona were willing to become your concubine, you would accept her, wouldn’t you?” Desperation clung to her question like burrs to wool.

“She is so beautiful–surely her face pleases you. If she offered herself, would you take her?” Serena hurried after him, the edge in her voice bordering on challenge.

In truth, it was less a challenge than a frantic gambit; she hoped to force from him a flat denial she could cling to.

Soren’s steps halted. He glanced back, eyes unreadable, and gave no immediate denial.

Blood drained further from Serena’s lips; she paled like moonlit parchment.

I’m not even certain the man beside Fiona earlier was Soren. I pray it wasn’t him. If he were icy to everyone, at least my despair would be equal to theirs.

Yet his guarded pause now fanned every suspicion of hers to life-

The Zonfrillo Estate might scorn the Niven family in matters of marriage, yet taking a concubine involved fewer formalities; if Soren truly favored Fiona, it was by no means impossible.

Had Fiona heard these frantic speculations, she would have sighed, long and weary. She wished for nothing more than to stay clear of this tangle and be spared the role of imaginary rival.

Among all the possible husbands paraded before her, Soren ranked dead last on her list. Given even the slimmest alternative, she would rather remain unattached than forge a single bond with that inscrutable man.

Soren let his gaze drift past Serena, settling with deliberate casualness on Fiona, who lingered half–hidden at the bend of the corridor. “Ms. Prescott,” Soren murmured, his voice polished yet cold, “to dissect another woman’s private affairs where she cannot answer is scarcely honorable.”

Color flooded Serena’s cheeks. The rebuke cut neat and deep, and with it went her remaining

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Chapter 82 Thunderstruck

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courage to demand explanations. After all, his words sounded impeccably righteous. In all these years, the city had never whispered a single scandal attaching Soren to any carriage or

boudoir.

Only later did it dawn on her that the man’s phrasing, not his posture, hid the blade. He had never once said whether he would–or would not–take Fiona as anything at all.

Fiona, stationed a few paces away, caught every syllable that drifted into the corridor’s hush. Serena, in contrast, had heard only fragments, but Fiona gathered the whole. That deliberate ambiguity sounded less like hesitation and more like a probe–an invitation for her to reveal how she felt about becoming, perhaps, a concubine he could set aside when convenient.

He will never make me his wife, but a concubine? That he might consider. He kept a lover in Broadmoor, after all. Why would he balk at adding one more?

Once Soren strode away, Serena gathered her skirts and hurried to Fiona. “Serena,” Fiona said softly, noticing the red rim around her friend’s eyes.

Without warning, Serena collapsed into Fiona’s arms. She sobbed in muffled bursts, fearful of curious ears, yet so desperate that the sound quivered through Fiona’s ribs.

“Blame my birth,” she whispered at last, dabbing her eyes with a sodden kerchief. “Had I been born a Thankerton, things might stand different. Even Roxanne, I think, loves him less than I do.”

“Countless men walk this earth,” Fiona answered, her tone as light as falling dusk. “One of them will fit you as the spring fits the bud. “But she wondered, in silence, if Soren’s failure to refuse outright was not the greatest cruelty of all.

The ache in Serena’s chest curdled into awkward pride. Suspecting she was being pitied, she fled for home before the other women could collect fresh gossip.

When Fiona returned to the low dais, Yolanda studied her with mild surprise. “Serena left unusually early today–any idea why?” Fiona folded her hands. “She felt unwell and thought it best to rest.”

Yolanda’s brows knit. “She has been acting strangely of late. She never used to seek your company, yet now she clings to you whenever she can.”

Fiona understood well enough–Serena favored her precisely because she kept her tongue sheathed. In her previous life, she had forgotten who Serena eventually married; she only recalled the girl vanishing to some distant province. Why that marriage had sent Serena so far away remained an unanswered riddle.

Her thoughts drifted back to Soren’s imminent departure from Jexburgh. In a fortnight, the

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