Chapter 321: Both of Them Laughing

The seat beside Rebecca was empty.

Around them the event had loosened into low conversation and background music. Guests leaned toward each other over glassware, laughing in careful doses, trading the kind of talk that always sounded more important than it was. On the far side of the hall, Durnik was still busy with the young streamers, too occupied to notice his own chair sitting unused beside his wife.

Lucas walked over without hurry.

Rebecca was sipping her drink when his shadow reached the table, using the glass the way people used distractions when a night had already started wasting their time. She lifted her eyes as he stopped beside the empty seat.

"Mind if I sit?" Lucas asked.

She did not answer with words.

Her gaze moved from his face to the chair, then back again. That seat belonged to her husband, at least on paper. In practice it belonged to absence. Durnik was across the room hunting attention under the excuse of supporting creators, leaving the place beside her open like an abandoned claim. Rebecca’s silence was not quite permission and not quite rejection. It was closer to a tired shrug in the form of eye contact.

Sit if you want.

Lucas sat.

He settled in like the chair had been waiting for someone more useful than the man who was supposed to fill it. For a moment he only tasted his wine, letting the quiet between them stretch just long enough to become deliberate.

"I’m Lucas," he said.

Rebecca looked at him over the rim of her glass.

"I know."

The two words came out flat, cool, meant to close the distance before it could grow. A dismissal dressed as acknowledgment. Most men would have smiled too hard, explained themselves, or retreated half a step under it.

Lucas only tilted his head slightly.

"Interesting," he said. "I haven’t introduced myself properly, and you already know about me."

Rebecca’s fingers tightened a little around her glass.

He did not stop there. He let the line hang, unfinished on purpose, the implication sitting in the open between them.

Rebecca’s eyes sharpened at once.

"No."

The word came fast.

Then faster.

"No, no, no. It’s not what you’re thinking."

Lucas’s mouth curved, quiet and amused.

"Hmm." He took another sip of wine, unhurried. "That’s quite interesting."

Rebecca watched him more carefully now, the boredom from earlier thinning into caution.

"So," Lucas continued, voice mild, "what exactly do you think I was thinking?"

Rebecca watched him for a second longer, then spoke.

"If I tell you where I know you from," she said, "I’m sure you wouldn’t still be sitting here talking to me."

Lucas rested an arm lightly against the table, wine glass turning once between his fingers.

"Is that so?"

His tone made the question sound almost lazy.

"Then tell me," he added. "What exactly is supposed to make me afraid?"

That was the first moment Rebecca’s boredom truly slipped.

Most conversations at events like this came pre-packaged. Flattery. Caution. People performing usefulness until the night ended. Lucas did none of that. He answered like a man who was entertained by the exchange itself, and it had been a long time since anyone had spoken to her that way.

Her world had gotten smaller under Durnik.

Male friends disappeared first. One warning look, one cold conversation, one rumor at the right table, and they learned to keep distance. The women went differently. Durnik smiled too much around them, stood too close, offered help with strings attached. Some of those friendships ended after he got what he wanted. Others ended because the women refused and then became inconvenient. Either way, Rebecca had learned how quickly a room could empty when her husband decided someone near her was worth chasing or chasing off.

So the fact that this man sat in Durnik’s chair, unbothered, and asked what was supposed to frighten him landed harder than it should have.

Rebecca laughed under her breath.

"So you really want to know," she said, studying him, "or are you only pretending you don’t?"

Lucas took a slow sip of wine.

"Since you already know so much about me," he said, "I suggest you tell me yourself."

Rebecca’s smile sharpened.

"So what you’re trying to tell me is that you’re not one of my husband’s enemies?"

Lucas looked at her over the glass, eyes faintly amused.

"Would it matter if I was?"

She blinked once.

He did not give her the clean denial she half expected. Instead he let the question turn back on her, light enough to sound playful, firm enough to keep her off balance.

"That’s not an answer," Rebecca said.

"It’s a better one," Lucas replied. "If I say no, you won’t believe me. If I say yes, you’ll pretend you want me to leave. Either way, you’re still talking to me."

Rebecca stared at him, then let out another short laugh despite herself.

"You’re enjoying this."

"A little," Lucas admitted. "You looked like you needed a better conversation than the one your husband abandoned you for."

Her brows lifted.

"Abandoned is a strong word."

Lucas glanced across the hall toward the young streamers still stuck in Durnik’s orbit, then back to her.

"If the seat is empty long enough," he said, "it stops being a seat and starts being evidence."

Rebecca opened her mouth, closed it again, and shook her head with a reluctant smile. He was teasing her, and the worst part was how easily it worked. Every time she tried to push the talk into something safer, he tilted it sideways and made her follow.

"You talk like someone who came here looking for trouble," she said.

"I talk like someone who found an empty chair," Lucas answered. "Trouble is optional."

"And if my husband comes back?"

Lucas’s smile widened just enough.

"Then the chair becomes interesting again."

Rebecca laughed fully that time, low and surprised, the sound slipping out before she could package it into something more elegant. For a moment the event noise around them faded under the simpler fact that she was actually being entertained. Not managed. Not ignored. Not endured.

Across the room, Durnik finally finished embarrassing himself.

Whatever charm he thought he was performing with the young streamers had thinned out. One girl had gone stiffly polite. Another had stopped pretending to laugh. The third had found a reason to look at her phone and not look up again. Durnik’s smile held a few seconds past usefulness, then hardened as he turned away, disappointed and irritated in equal measure.

He headed back toward his table.

Then he stopped.

Lucas was in his seat.

Rebecca was angled toward him.

And both of them were laughing.

The sight hit harder than a direct insult.

His wife did not look bored anymore. And the man from the lobby, the one who should not have been there at all, was sitting in his place like the night had made room for him on purpose.

Durnik’s face tightened as he started toward them.