Reborn: The Alpha I Called a Mistake

Chapter 4

Aurelia’s POV

I wore the necklace he had given me on our first anniversary—a delicate silver chain with a sapphire pendant that matched my eyes.

I chose his favorite dress.

Deep blue.

Fitted.

The same dress that had once made him call me his siren. With a bottle of champagne in my hand and hope filling my chest, I drove to his office.

I was certain our love could survive anything. When I arrived, the building was glowing with lights and music.

My heart fluttered. A party. He had planned a birthday party for me. I touched the sapphire at my throat, smoothed my dress, and stepped inside with a smile.

Then I saw him.

Ryan.

Standing in the center of the grand ballroom. With another woman in his arms. She was tall, slender, and effortlessly beautiful, with golden hair cascading over her shoulders. One hand rested against his chest.

Ryan looked at her the way he had once looked at me. And in that instant, the entire world went silent.

The music disappeared. The laughter faded. All I could hear was my heartbeat.

Fast. Loud. Breaking.

Ryan saw me.

His face went pale. For one second, our eyes locked. I waited for him to pull away from her.

He didn’t.

Instead, he whispered something into her ear before walking toward me.

“Babe, what are you doing here?”

His voice was low and urgent.

I stared at him through the tears gathering in my eyes.

“It’s my birthday.”

He flinched.

Guilt flashed across his face.

Then it vanished. His expression hardened.

“I have an important meeting,” he said coldly. “You shouldn’t have come here without telling me. I’ll call you later.”

I almost laughed. A meeting? On my birthday?

I opened my mouth, but no words came. He had already turned away. Back to her. Back to the party. Back to the life that suddenly had no place for me.

I stood there, humiliated, the champagne bottle still clutched in my hand. The sapphire pendant felt like ice against my skin.

Something inside me broke. Not loudly. Not dramatically. It simply shattered. I walked out.

I barely remembered getting into my car. I drove without knowing where I was going until the city lights disappeared behind me.

I didn’t remember parking the car or walking home.

I remembered only fragments—the blur of streetlights through the rain, the hollow echo of my heels against the wet pavement, the taste of salt on my lips that I stubbornly told myself was rain.

The apartment was dark when I stumbled through the door. I didn’t bother turning on the lights. I simply sank onto the couch, still wearing my soaked coat, and stared blankly at the wall as the hours crawled by like wounded animals.

My phone buzzed.

Again.

And again.

Ryan’s name glowed across the screen like a brand burned into my skin, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I couldn’t hear his voice. I couldn’t bear the sound of his excuses—the honeyed words that had once made me believe in magic.

So I let the phone ring until the battery died.

Then I sat in the silence, hollowed out and aching.

I couldn’t believe he had cheated on me.

The thought kept circling through my mind like a carousel that refused to stop.

Maybe I had misunderstood.

Maybe she was a colleague. A client. A friend.

Maybe there was an explanation—some perfectly reasonable explanation that would make the image of her hand resting against his chest disappear.

I clung to that hope like a drowning woman clinging to driftwood.

And I waited.

The door burst open at three in the morning.

Ryan stood in the doorway, his chest heaving, his golden eyes wild with something that looked almost like fear. He was soaked through, his dark hair plastered against his forehead. In his hands was a white bakery box, the kind that carried cakes too beautiful to eat.

He stared at me.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

“You’re awake.” His voice cracked on the words, a sound I had never heard from him before. “Aurelia, I thought—I called you so many times. I thought something had happened to you.”

I looked at him.

At the man I had loved with every fiber of my being.

And I felt nothing.

Just a vast, empty numbness spreading through my chest like frost.

“I saw you holding that woman.”

The box slipped from his hands and landed on the floor with a soft thud.

He crossed the room in three strides and dropped to his knees in front of me, reaching for my hands.

“Let me explain,” he pleaded, his voice urgent and desperate. “Please, Aurelia. Just let me explain.”

I let him take my hands.

I let him press them against his chest, where I could feel the frantic pounding of his heart beneath my palms.

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Vespera Nightbane.”

The name fell from his lips like a curse.

“Her father is a business partner of my father’s. They’ve been negotiating a merger for months, and my father asked me to escort her—to keep up appearances.” His fingers tightened around mine. “It’s nothing, Aurelia. It’s politics. Business. She means nothing to me.”