Page 10 of Elusive Alpha
“Please, Idris. I don’t understand.”
How could he?
He was the one who sold the company to those vipers and pretended to be some loving, kind person?
How could someone be two people at once?
I wrapped my arms around myself while the driver took off. With my forehead pressed against the window, I commanded my tears not to fall. He didn’t deserve them.
My anger was toward him, the alpha who’d thrown away something great for money. My unshed tears were for the life I’d opened myself up to and now couldn’t have.
There was no way I could live a life with this man.
One minute, I was daydreaming of a life where he and I loved each other and maybe had a family and the next, well, all of that was gone.
Maybe?
Could I find it in myself to forgive him? It was business, after all.
No. No, it wasn’t just business. It was personal. To me. To the people who’d lost their jobs and investment in the company. Whose lives had changed because of his decision.
He didn’t say anything else in the car. Part of me wanted him to, but the other part wanted him to suffer a bit. Ugh. No matter what he’d done, his suffering broke my heart. He probably didn’t even realize the damage he’d done.
Once we got back to the bed-and-breakfast and the car drove away, I considered telling him, but the words stuck in my throat.
I turned to look at him and the sorrow in his eyes made my chest tight.
“Idris, I don’t know what I did. Please tell me and I’ll fix it. I swear.”
“You can’t fix this,” I answered.
“We can fix anything. Together.”
I opened and closed my mouth several times before turning on my heels and heading into the house. “Not this,” I murmured before walking up the stairs. “Not this.”
Of course the alpha didn’t take the hint. He followed me up the stairs. I stomped. He climbed gently. I huffed and puffed. His breathing was steady.
The even breaths of a very rich man who was unconcerned that he’d destroyed people’s lives.
“Mate, let’s talk about this. We have to talk through it.”
Hearing the word mate come from his lips broke the dam of my tears. I stopped at my door and turned on him. “There’snothing to talk about. It’s done. I knew this was too good to be true.”
I walked into my room and slammed the door. On him. On us. On the possibility of a life I didn’t think I’d ever have.
Chapter Eleven
Rook
Standing outside his room, I rested my forehead on the cool wood of the door. What had I done? I ran over the course of our date in my mind, picturing us going in and out of all of those cute stores, eating pie and pie-like items, weighing their merits with humor, sneaking kisses in the name of tasting the dessert on the other person’s lips. Nothing wrong there, and when we entered the maze, we’d still been having fun, laughing and holding hands.
We even joked about not losing one another in a maze clearly geared toward a younger audience, and then I took the call, he stepped out of sight, and… Was that it? Did he think I was breaking our vow not to get separated? But he was the one who made the move. I hadn’t left at all, so couldn’t be the issue.
Perhaps it was my talking on the phone at all while on our date? He hadn’t seemed bothered at first. I tried to think how long I might have taken, but it didn’t seem as if it had been more than a few minutes. If he offended that easily at being ignored for a very brief moment, that did not bode well for our relationship.
But I could not walk away from my fated that easily. Even if Idris had a character flaw, who didn’t? And Fate must know her business. We could talk this through—if only I could find out for sure what had sent him flying away from me. And no way was this conversation going to happen through a door. I rapped on it. “Omega, open up and let me in.” More like the big bad wolf than a panther, but we use what comes to us.
“Go away.” His voice came from only a few inches away, on the other side of the door. Okay. He was close by.
