Chapter 159

When Lucette awoke, the room was dark, and panic doused her in an icy wave. She struggled upright, one hand going to her middle, curving over the reassuring bump even as the remnants of the nightmare she’d been having clung to her consciousness.

‘Ariston —’

‘I’m here.’

In the darkness, she couldn’t see him, but she felt his hand come and close over hers. Even so, she couldn’t stop shivering.

‘I had the most awful dream.’ Her voice was choked and her throat closed. She’d dreamt about Annelise—something she hadn’t done in a very long time. ‘It was so terrible.’

‘It was just a dream, Lucette ,’ Ariston said, his voice soft and steady. ‘It wasn’t real. Everything’s all right. The baby’s all right.’

She nodded and gulped, wanting and needing to believe him and yet not quite able to do so. The dream had been real once upon a time. She’d relived the worst memory she'd had in her nightmare, and she was afraid of it happening again. But Ariston couldn’t understand that because she hadn’t to