Page 12 of Rejected By My Shifter Billionaire
“No. Not quite.” She turned to her companion. “I’d like you to take a photo with her. Make sure you look happy, too. I’m going to show it to my husband, let him know that my love child’s in a good place and we’d only be guilty of ruining her life if we let her know about the truth.”
Without a word, I took the phone she had in her hand and came to stand beside her companion. “Please smile, ma’am.” I lifted the phone up, smiled, and took a selfie. It was pretty easy, thanks to the oddness spreading inside of me.
And just like that, she was gone, leaving nothing but oddness behind her.
I watched my mother drive away, in an obviously expensive car, and I felt odder and odder—-
Behind me, I heard my grandmother speak.
“Oh, Chris.”
I whirled around, alarmed by the tremor in Kate’s voice. My grandmother wasn’t crying, but my grandfather was, and the sight crushed me.
I saw it all in his face, saw that he blamed himself for the way my mother turned out, saw the way he couldn’t understand why his own flesh and blood could be like that to them.
And Kate, my lovely, strong grandmother...
I could see it in the way she was hugging her husband, the way she wished she could take all his pain and absorb it inside of her.
All of this because of my mother and howoddshe was.
Rushing to them, I wrapped my arms around Kate and Chris. “I’m sorry.” The tears started to fall, and the oddness started to disappear. “I’m so sorry you had to meet her again because of me.” The more I spoke, the harder I cried. But I didn’t stop because it also made the oddness go away, and I wanted that. Ineededthat.
“I love you, Gran, love you, Gramps, always.” Closing my eyes, I hugged them more tightly, destroying the oddness by allowing the pain of love to fill me.
My mother was odd because she only wanted love without the pain.
But I wasn’t going to be like her, I promised myself fiercely. I wasn’t going to be odd. I wasn’t going to hate. Instead, I was going to fall in love, find a man who would love me back, and with him, I’d give Kate and Chris a son, and we’d be a family.
Together, we wouldn’t ever be odd.
“WE CAN’T ALWAYS PLAYthis game,” the council member warned Alessandro from behind. “If you persist in continuing with such actions, a fine will no longer be sufficient. You need to remember, Alessandro: being a prince won’t protect you forever.”
The words continued to echo like a taunt in Alessandro Moretti’s mind even after he was already home.
Fucking Lyccan Council,he thought grimly as he reached for a fresh strip of gauze. All they wanted were peace talks and mediations, like that would really stop those stupid pups from talking shit about his family.
A knock sounded on the door then, and Alessandro said immediately, “Come in.” He didn’t need to ask who it was, the scent tingeing the air letting him know who it was without turning around.
Domenico Moretti walked in. Taller than the twins, Alessandro and Alejandro, by a few inches, he was also more powerfully built, as befitting the heir apparent to the Moretti clan. He also used to be considered the strongest and most respected member of their race, someone whose mere glance would have Lyccans quivering in fear.
But that was then.
Now, Domenico Moretti was a mere shell of who he once was. Now, he was a laughingstock, someone almost the entire race loved to ridicule because of the way he had allowed love to make a fool out of him.
Seeing Alessandro seated on one of the bar stools, applying a special salve to his wounds, Domenico came to a stop. Since most wounds, even those considered mortally fatal by humans, would have healed in mere seconds for Lyccans like them, Domenico knew there were only a few reasons to explain why there were still red gashes on his brother’s chest.
“How bad is the poison?” Domenico asked, his face and tone equally impassive.
“Nothing strong,” Alessandro answered dismissively as he finished applying the salve and started bandaging his lower chest. “It’s just what I’d expect from cowards like them.” His lip curled as his spoke, his disgust evident as he recalled the way the pups had ganged up on him, thinking they’d win because they had the numbers on their side.
Idiots.Goddamn idiots, thinking that they could beat him just like that.
“As they were obviously cowards...” Domenico’s mildly spoken words drew Alessandro’s attention back to him. “There shouldn’t have been any point in beating them up, don’t you think?” His older brother paused. “And alleightof them, too?”
Another shrug. “You and I both know they deserved it.”
“Well, both of us also know it wasn’t truly you they were trying to offend.”
