Page 47 of Drown My Sorrow

“No, wait,” Mum almost shouts. “Please, I need the money for the doctors and physios. Please don’t fire me. Daniel, please! I’ll do anything you want. I just can’t do that.”

I watch her and wonder what her life would be like if I had died as well. Would she be happy now? I know Daniel likes her.

Maybe she’d be flying around the world with the self-centered little dick with legs. Grieving on a jet, the memories of us tempered with fine champagne and glamourous clothes.

Mum puts down her phone and bursts into tears.

I sit awkwardly, trying not to draw attention to her. She hates it when I try to give her sympathy. If I try to say something, she’ll bite my head off and then get mad at me for doing it in a café.

“Stay here!” she barks.

I wince but dip my head, indicating I’ve heard her.

I sip my water, but the doorbell chimes, and I look in that direction. I’ll never know why I lift my head at that exact moment, but my whole world shatters and reforms in an instant.

He’s so golden and perfect. His teeth are white and even, and his eyes are this stunning blue-green. He’s wearing a suit and looks like a hero from those romance books I’ve been reading.

A smell of flowers, my favourite flowers, Night-blooming jasmine erupts and spreads through the air, but I can’t look away. It’s my perfume. I perfumed for my alpha.

He’s older and distinguished. Oh, wow.

I catch his scent, and I recognise it as tequila. My father used to drink it, and I have always loved that smell.

The jasmine gets stronger until I’m choking on it. Other customers are complaining, but he looks up, and his eyes meet mine.

I smile. Hope is a broken bird fluttering to life in my chest.

Everything will be okay now.

PresentDay

When Kelly walks through the door to the café, I feel like its history repeating itself. I’m not twenty-three but a girl of sixteen. He’s still as devastatingly handsome as he was back then, but, this time, instead of shock, I see fury when he looks at me, and I recoil so hard I spill my coffee.

Beau follows my gaze, twisting to look over his shoulder. He catches sight of him and smiles faintly. He checks the time and gives Kelly an up-nod that the alpha ignores. I briefly, hysterically, wonder what that was about, but then realise I actually don’t care. I just want to disappear.

I return my gaze to the cupcake that Beau bought me and take a tiny piece and put it in my mouth, hoping I don’t choke on it. There is no flavour to it.

Beau leans over and whispers in my ear, but I don’t really hear him. No, all my attention is on the alpha who hurt me, who broke me. The one I’ve pined for all these years. Even when I’ve hated him, I’ve still wanted him.

He walks in, and I hold my breath as he gets closer and closer, and then he just walks on past like I’m not even there.

I sink low in my seat, my cheeks flaming, and fight the urge to run. Why would he want to speak to me? Of course, he doesn’t. I sniffle and break the cupcake into a dozen pieces.

“Cher, excuse me for a moment.”

Beau stands up and approaches Kelly before I can say anything. No! I can’t see this. I struggle up, grab my cane, and start limping towards the door.

I can hear them talking in cold, hostile voices. I want to call Beau back to me, but more than that, I want to be alone. Where I can let this embarrassment and shame eat me alive.

The door opens, and a familiar face has me pausing. Gwen Archer. She’s beautiful, dark hair, dark eyes, flawless, tanned skin, and completely and utterly evil. Not only does she have no empathy or ability to sympathize with anyone else, she actually enjoys seeing them in pain.

She has wanted the Daane for as long as they have been mine.

And she hates me for it.

I hobble past her, but just as I slide through the narrow gap, my cane loses purchase, and I fall. I know she kicked it, I just know it, but, just like always, there’s no way to prove it.

I land heavily, the pain shooting through my body like lightning. For seconds, all I can do is breathe through the agony, but even that is an effort. I want to scream, but I lock the sound behind my gritted teeth and writhe on the floor.

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