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appreciated that. At the moment she didn’t feel like being in the middle of some pissing match. She needed comfort and Lucas had sensed it.
    As she stared back at Cole, he looked …tortured. Again, why? None of this made sense. Unless…?
    “You knew I’d be here tonight, didn’t you? Did you plan this? How did you know? You weren’t surprised to see me. This didn’t come out of the blue at all.”
    Lucas’s hand tightened on her upper arm and he pulled her in closer, as if to tell her not to worry. But he too waited for Cole’s response, his dark eyes staring intently at the man who’d boldly encroached on his territory.
    Maybe he was curious. Ren wasn’t entirely certain why Lucas was allowing this to go further. At times he was absolutely unreadable. This was one of those times. She didn’t sense that he was angry. She didn’t want him angry.
    Cole’s lips drew into a firm line. His jaw grew tight, which only accentuated the strong lines of his face. Gone were the traces of youth.He was a formidable man. One that she’d absolutely be drawn to. That promise of dominance. The quiet strength in those intense eyes.
    She’d had a taste. Just a taste. Mixed with youthful innocence. It had been bittersweet. She’d loved him so much, but they’d been too young to know what they were getting into.
    “I asked Damon to invite you,” he said by way of admission. “I saw you the other night when I was eating with Damon and Serena. I knew I had to see you again. I couldn’t walk away…”
    Like he had before.
    The words lay unspoken and heavy between them. The air was electric, the silence unnerving. She swallowed but couldn’t rid herself of the sudden knot that was closing her throat.
    “And yet you knew she belonged to me,” Lucas said mildly.
    “She was mine first.”
    Lucas nodded. “That may be so, but you’re her past. I’m her future.”
    Ren glanced up in surprise but Lucas admonished her with a quick squeeze of her arm. It was the first time he issued any sort of order since they’d arrived. He wanted her silence.
    She lowered her gaze and his grip slowly loosened.
    Cole’s eyes glittered in challenge. “So you say. But I’ve not heard Ren say the same.”
    Lucas studied him a moment, his expression odd. “Interesting that you’d make such a distinction. As the one who owns her, body and soul, the two are the same. What I say
is
what she says. Clearly you are a man of similar tastes and yet you’d expect her to refute my word. Would you tolerate the same if she were yours?”
    “I would want her to be happy,” Cole said from behind tightly clenched teeth. “Even if it wasn’t with me.”
    “In that we are agreed,” Lucas said. “Ren’s happiness is of utmost importance to me.”
    “Then allow her to make the choice.”
    Lucas smiled. “She already has.”
    Cole stared at Lucas, the man who
owned
Ren. It wasn’t an alien concept. It could be argued that Damon owned Serena, although she owned his heart, body and soul as well. He was hers every bit as much as she was his.
    He’d never given the idea of ownership much thought. It was something that over the years he’d contemplated. He’d seen. He’d experienced. Though he’d never owned a woman. He’d never been close enough to one to feel proprietary over. He’d only ever wanted to possess one woman.
    Now, faced with a man who was very clear in his ownership, and backed by Ren herself, who seemed very comfortable with the label and the sentiment, he was …appalled? Dismayed? Frustrated?
    He was a flaming hypocrite because from the moment he’d laid eyes on Ren again, he’d been seized by a force so strong that it staggered him. A voice inside his head that told him to claim her. That she belonged to him. That
he
wanted to own her.
    He wanted to be able to show her that he wasn’t the same boy playing at dominance. He would never make such a brutal mistake now. He would never hurt her as he’d done when he was young and