Rejected by my Alpha Mate

CHAPTER 4

“Aurora, meet Celeste, my wife. Celeste, meet Aurora,” he said, trying to introduce us to each other.

“A wife???? What does he mean by he’s married?” It felt like my whole world was crashing down all over again.

I could feel my tears building up, it was like I was reliving the betrayal I felt years ago.

“Nice to meet you, Celeste. I’m the mother of Lucas’ children”, I said, trying to ‘mark’ some sort of territory in Lucas’ life.

“Oh yes, he told me about you, sorry about your children’s disappearance,” she said to me. I knew her apology wasn’t genuine, but I told her thank you.

I told Lucas that I was leaving and he asked me where I was going to stay since my initial home was demolished about three years back. I told him that I'd be staying with Selene in the meantime. He told me that if I needed any place to stay, I could always come and stay at his place.

“Can you imagine this man? Telling me that I can come and live in the same home as he and his wife,” I said to myself.

“I’ll come to see you later this evening so that we can start planning the children’s rescue,” he said while opening the door for me.

Finally, I was out of that house. I didn’t want them to find out how the news of his marriage hurt me. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t that orphan teenager that could let anyone hurt me.

Selene’s house wasn’t far from Lucas’ place, so I got there immediately. I confronted Selene as to why she didn’t tell me Lucas was married all these years.

“It’s not like I didn’t want to tell you about the marriage Aurora. It’s just that I didn’t see it as important information. I mean everyone in town knows that their marriage was arranged, the only thing we don’t know is why,” Selene said, trying to justify herself.

“Even though it’s an arranged marriage you should have told me about it.”

Selene kept on apologizing to me, but her apologies weren’t going to make me feel better. I just asked her to show me the room she reserved for me because I wanted to be alone.

The room wasn’t like my room back in New York but it was something. I fell to the bed on my back thinking about how Lucas had let me down for the second time. “So, he really got married?” I asked myself internally. While thinking about Lucas’ betrayal, I remembered that Lucas wasn’t my reason for coming back, it was to find my children and that was all that mattered.

Lucas said that he'd be stopping by later this evening to discuss how we were going to get back the triplets. Instead of looking at the ceiling while waiting for Lucas, I decided to sleep to rest my head because it was such a long day for me. Imagine coming back to a town impromptu after you left years ago, then seeing the love of your life and the father of your kids married. It was a lot to take in for me, so I needed the rest.

It was barely even two hours since I had slept off when Selene came to wake up that Lucas was here. Trying not to get excited, I changed into a new set of clothes and joined Lucas in the living room.

Pretending as if I didn’t care about this man was an extreme sport, to be honest. I mean he aged like fine wine; he was so handsome that all I could think about was giving myself to him one more time, but I had to focus on what was important.

“I know the way you found out that I was married wasn’t the best way I should have broken the news to you,” he said while I pulled a chair to sit in front of him.

“I mean, I won’t lie to you that I wasn’t shocked after finding out, but it’s your life. You’re grown, so you have the right to fall in love and start a family,” I said, trying to hide how I felt about his marriage from showing on my face.

“O dear Aurora, that’s not the case here. I’m not in love with Celeste.”

“What does he mean by he’s not in love with her even as they were married,” I thought to myself.

“What do you mean by you’re not in love with her?” I asked him, letting my curiosity get the best of me.

He told me how after that night that he rejected me at the park, he focused his energy on his new role as Alpha. It was then his parents set him up for an arranged marriage with Celeste just because she was the daughter of one of the most powerful Alphas in the whole of Westwood. Their union was seen as a strategic alliance, strengthening the ties between their packs and ensuring their mutual protection and prosperity.

From how he described it, their relationship appeared to be built on mutual respect and shared ambitions. He said that as the years passed, he and Celeste's connection remained mostly platonic. Though they respected each other and worked well as a team, the flame of passion and true love had yet to ignite between them.

“So, basically, you and Celeste aren’t in love with each other?” I asked him after he finished narrating his relationship with Celeste.

“No, we aren’t Aurora,” he replied me.

I couldn’t deny the fact that I was happy with this information he had just given me but the scene of Celeste kissing him kept on replaying in my head.

“What about the kiss both of you shared? I don’t think platonic relationships do that,” I asked him.

He told me that he doesn’t know why Celeste did that, that it was probably because I was there and he only agreed to it because he didn’t want any issues with Celeste.

His explanations seemed sensible but I could only think about one question. “Why then did he leave me?”