Page 120 of Pack Choice
Then there’s the other woman. I can’t help feeling sorry for her too. It isn’t only me who is going to end up hurt here. She’s probably in love with him. She probably has no idea her partner is a lying douchebag who deserves to be buried in a mound of dog shit. This will probably destroy her like it will destroy me. Am I doing the right thing? Would I want to know if it was me?
Hell, yes I would. I know the kind of damage a scumbag can do. The lies, the deceit, those things can completely undo a person. I saw it happen to those around me.
The alphas in the front of the car are silent, River occasionally issuing directions to Ford, and before we know it, we’re pulling up outside a mansion with a wide lawn, a sycamore tree casting long shadows across the neatly trimmed grass and a swing dangling from its branches.
“Are you really sure you want to do this?” Ford asks me as he cuts the engine.
“Yes,” I say, trying the handle and huffing when I remember the child locks. Ford climbs out and comes to open my door.
River climbs out too, walking to stand with us.
“I want to do this on my own,” I tell them both.
“We’re not leaving you–”
“We’ll wait here, by the car,” River says, resting his hand on Ford’s arm.
I take another of those steadying breaths and step up towards the house. It’s no bigger than my family’s and yet it’s modern and intimidating and all those doubts swimming in my belly come fluttering back up to the surface. I bat them away. I’m angry too and sometimes rage is the best thing to see you through.
Climbing up onto the doorstep, I press my finger to the doorbell and wait. The door is so heavy that I can’t hear footsteps or noise from within although I’m pretty sure I’m being examined by the security camera hovering above my head. For a moment, I realize this could all be for nothing. Maybe they won’t open the door. Maybe no one is home. But then the locks clunk and the door groans open.
An older woman in flats and floral pants, a bright scarf tied around her braids, stands on the other side, peering at me with curiosity.
I frown. This wasn’t who I was expecting. I was expecting someone younger. For a moment it throws me. But I’m being stupid. Remember, all those older women at the charity auction, all vying for a piece of Colten Turner? Maybe he has an older woman after all.
“Hello?” the woman says when I fail to speak.
“Hi,” I say, “do you live here?”
My frown is contagious. The woman’s brow wrinkles. She opens her mouth to speak but before she can, a voice calls out from the hallway behind her.
“Sissy? Who is it? River?”
It’s a young voice. A very young voice, and in the next moment a little girl comes skipping down the hallway, halting at the older woman’s legs and peeking through them to stare up at me.
She’s four or five, freckles sprinkled across her button nose and her fine dark hair bunched in pigtails on either side of her head, tied with green ribbons. Ribbons that match her eyes.
“Who are you?” she asks, before popping her thumb into her mouth.
“I …” I turn around and peer at River, then back at the older woman and the young girl, “I think I have the wrong house.”
Although even as I say it, I know I haven’t. The girl’s eyes are a vivid emerald. Unmistakable.
“Are you looking for the Archers?” the older woman says, pointing across the street. “They’re that house there.”
I take a step backward and as I do, the little girl spies something behind me, her eyes brighten and she removes her thumb to yell “Uncle River!” before squeezing through the woman’s legs and dashing off towards the car. I turn to watch her race into his arms and giggle as he throws her into the air.
My heart races. My blood turns cold.
I turn back to the woman and find Colten standing right beside her, a look of thunder on his face.
“She’s yours?” I gasp, the words slipping from my mouth despite the way he’s looking at me.
“Yes,” he says, “she’s mine.”
So much for the rage sustaining me. It slips away like water down a drain, and all I’m left with is heartbreak.
“Youaremarried!” I say, more stupid tears leaking from my eyes. I’m hungry and exhausted and stupid, oh so stupid. Because I’d hoped, hadn’t I, that I’d be wrong. That there would be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Instead, it’s worse – a million times worse – than I imagined. He has a family. He has a child. Heck, he probably has several.
