The Alpha’s Biggest Regret: Begging For A Second Chance

CHAPTER THREE

Sara's POV

"You can have the trust fund," Caden said. "Whatever you want from the house. The car, the accounts — I'll make sure you're taken care of."

I looked at him across the desk. At the papers between us with my signature still wet.

"I don't want anything," I said.

"Sera—"

"I said I don't want anything from you."

He opened his mouth. Closed it and tried again. "I know this doesn't feel fair right now. But I need you to know that I never wanted you to leave here with nothing. Whatever happened between us I still—"

I stood up too suddenly and the room tilted. It came on fast — the dizziness that had been dealing with me for two weeks, starting behind my eyes and dropping through my whole body in one wave.

Caden was around the desk before I finished the thought. His hands were on my arms and his voice was completely different.

"Hey! Look at me. Are you alright? Sera, are you—"

"Get off me." I pulled my arms free and stepped back. He let go immediately, hands up, but his eyes were genuinely frightened thing. "Why are you doing that?"

"Doing what?"

"That." I gestured at his face. "Why are you being sincere right now when you spent weeks treating me like furniture."

"I have always cared about you. That has never—"

"You are a liar."

"I am not lying—"

"You moved me out of my room. You sat her in my chair and let her redirect my staff and you didn't come once when I was sick for days." My voice was shaking and I hated it and couldn't stop it. "You told me I was in her place. That our marriage wasn't fair to her." I picked up my bag from the floor. "So don't stand in front of me being caring. I wanted your caring for four years and I am done wanting it."

"If you would just let me explain—"

"I don't want your explanation. I don't want your trust fund. I don't want a single thing from this house except to leave it."

********

My room was exactly as I had left it. Small, wrong-facing window, the lamp on the unfamiliar hook. I pulled my two bags from under the bed and started moving — wardrobe to bag, drawer to bag, not thinking about anything except what went and what stayed.

An omega appeared in the doorway. Lena, nineteen, sweet-faced. She asked if I needed help packing.

I told her I was fine.

She stood there another moment and said, very quietly, "I'm sorry, Luna." Then disappeared before I could respond.

I folded a sweater. Put it in the bag. Reached for the next one.

The door opened again and I didn't look up because I knew that perfume. I had known it for weeks and I was very tired of it.

"So you're really leaving," Isolde said.

I kept packing.

"I thought you might fight harder." She stepped into the room, her voice dropping into something more dangerous than the performance she ran in public. "But I suppose there was nothing to fight with. This was always going to end here."

I put another sweater in the bag.

"You're pregnant," she said.

I went still.

"I can smell it. Any wolf can if they're paying attention. I'm surprised Caden hasn't—" She paused. "Although he hasn't been paying very close attention to you, he has."

I zipped the bag closed, picked it up and turned around. She was standing in the middle of the room with her arms folded and her chin up and her eyes bright. She looked at my face, then at my stomach, and smiled.

"It won't matter," she said. "This pack will not rally around a half-blood's pup. Caden will move on. And you will have left all of this—" she gestured wide and slow at the room, the house, all of it, "—for nothing. This was always my place. You were always temporary."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"I want to correct a stupid misconception you've built your entire plan around," I said. "I was never in your place. I was never holding your seat. I was his fated mate — chosen by the Moon Goddess herself — and I was his Luna, and I was exactly where I was supposed to be." I moved toward the door. "If you have a problem with how any of that went, take it up with the goddess. She chose me. Not you. No lie you tell and no guilt you weaponize is ever going to change what destiny already decided."

I looked at the smile that had gone tight and strange at the corners of her mouth.

"I hope you enjoy the room," I said.

I walked out to see Marcus, the Beta, in the hallway.

He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his face set in the careful neutral expression. He pushed off the wall without a word and picked up my second bag from just inside the doorway.

We walked downstairs together. Through the entrance hall. Past the pack members who stopped and watched and said nothing. Past the kitchen where I could hear Marta moving around inside and I didn't let myself stop because if I stopped I wouldn't be able to leave again.

Outside, Marcus loaded both bags into my car, checked they were secure and closed the boot. He stood with his hands in his pockets and looked at me.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Somewhere I know."

He nodded. He didn't push, didn't offer solutions or apologies on behalf of a man who should have been making his own. He just looked at me with those steady eyes and said, "You deserved better than this. I want you to know that."

My throat tightened. "Thank you, Marcus."

He stepped back. I got in, started the engine and pulled down the long packhouse drive and I did not look in the mirror. Not at the building or the gates or the man I could feel standing at the window of his office watching me go.

I didn't look back.

******

Three days later the coastline appeared through my windscreen — wide and blue and smelling of salt and open air and nothing that reminded me of Ironmoor.

Kevin was waiting at the end of the dock road exactly where I told him I'd arrive, leaning against his truck with his arms crossed. When my car pulled up he didn't say anything dramatic. He just opened my door and pulled me into a hug so solid and that something I had been holding in my chest for three days cracked open.

"You look terrible," he said into my hair.

"Thank you, Kevin."

He pulled back, looked at my face, then at the rest of me, and his eyes slowed down and stopped. He looked back up at my face with a question he was too careful to say out loud.

"I'll explain inside," I told him.

*******

Dani was Kevin's girlfriend and she decided she loved me in approximately four minutes. She had made too much food and she talked constantly while serving it, which was exactly right because it meant I didn't have to.

After we ate Kevin refilled my water and sat across from me and waited.

"I'm pregnant," I said.

The kitchen went quiet.

Dani put both hands over her mouth. Kevin set his glass down very carefully.

"How far?" he asked.

"About nine weeks."

"And the father."

"Is not involved."

Kevin had known me since we were children. He knew every tone of my voice and he knew what 'not involved' meant coming from me in this particular tone. He nodded once and let it sit.

Dani reached across the table and grabbed both my hands. "Okay," she said. "First things first — you are staying here. With us. Non-negotiable. Kevin—"

"Already decided," Kevin said.

"—we need to find you a doctor and we need to look at the spare room because it is full of Kevin's fishing equipment which is absolutely—"

"Cleared by tomorrow," Kevin said.

Dani squeezed my hands. "You are not doing this alone," she said. Like it was simple.

I looked at her. Kevin was already mentally reorganizing his spare room. At the small warm kitchen with the sound of the sea coming through the window.

I exhaled for what felt like the first time in weeks.

"Okay," I said.