I Married My Cheating Fiancé’s Exiled Brother

Chapter 2

Emma’s pov

“Emma?” My mother frowned. “Why are you crying?”

I touched my cheek. I hadn’t realized I was crying.

“Where’s Chloe?”

My mother glanced at the bridesmaids gathered around the makeup table. “Upstairs, I assume. Why?”

I laughed. It was an ugly sound. “Of course she is.”

“I don’t have time for this. The guests are arriving, and the Cross Alpha is already asking when you’ll be ready.”

“Mom, Daniel cheated on me.” I blurted out.

One of the bridesmaids stopped brushing her hair. My mother blinked.

“With Chloe,” I said.

Three seconds passed before my mother stood, so abruptly that her chair scraped the floor.

“That’s impossible.”

“I saw them.”

Her expression changed, but not the way I’d hoped. She looked toward the door.

“Did anyone else see?”

The question hit harder than the betrayal had.

“You’re worried about who knows?”

“Keep your voice down.” She dropped to a hiss. “Do you understand what you’re saying? The Cross pack is downstairs. Three packs are downstairs. Your father has spent three years on this alliance, and without Cross protection, the Hart border is open to every rogue who wants our land. Our people are sleeping easier because of this wedding.”

“My fiancé was sleeping with my best friend.”

“And you want to put our whole pack at risk over one mistake?”

“One mistake?”

“Men stray, Emma. Luna's duty is to hold the pack together, whatever the cost.” She pressed her lips into a line. “That’s what I did.”

I looked at her for a long moment, and then at the dress. I understood something I should have understood years ago. If I married Daniel, she’d expect me to forgive him. If he cheated again, she’d tell me to be patient. If he humiliated me, she’d tell me to protect the pack. And if I finally broke, she’d ask why I couldn’t have been a better mate.

“No,” I whispered.

“What did you say?”

“I’m not marrying him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not marrying him.”

She grabbed my wrist. “You will not shame this family over a private disagreement!”

I pulled free. “Then you should have chosen a better man to defend.”

The slap came so fast I barely saw her hand move. My head snapped to the side. The room swallowed its breath. My wolf surged up my spine with a snarl, and my nails pressed hard against my palms, and I held her back.

Behind my mother, the bridesmaid with the hairbrush looked at the floor. Another one took half a step forward and stopped.

My mother’s chest was rising and falling. Then she leaned in.

“Put on your dress. Fix your face. And get married.”

She turned and straightened the chair she’d knocked back, aligning it with the table, as if that were the thing that needed fixing.

Something inside me broke. Not because she’d slapped me, but because some foolish part of me had still hoped she’d choose me.

I walked to the window and lifted my dress off its hanger. The satin slid through my fingers. I’d imagined this moment a thousand times: my father walking me down the aisle, Daniel crying when he saw me, Chloe squeezing my hand and telling me I looked beautiful.

“No,” I said again, to no one.

The door opened.

The temperature in the room changed, the way it does when a predator walks in. The bridesmaids lowered their eyes. My mother’s shoulders rounded, almost into a bow. Daniel walked in with his hair combed, his shirt buttoned, and his face arranged into something close to concern. He’d always carried himself like the heir of the Cross pack, and every wolf in the room responded to it, including mine, and I hated her for it.

“Baby,” he said softly.

I flinched when he came closer. He noticed.

“Can we have a moment alone?”

“No.”

His jaw tightened. “Emma.”

“No. You don’t get to whisper in my ear and make the world different when nobody else is listening.”

He smiled. It was the same smile that had made me fall in love with him four years ago. “I know you’re upset. But we need to think about the bigger picture. Our families. Everything we’ve built.”

“What have we built, Daniel? A relationship you kept up while sleeping with my best friend?”

“It was a mistake.”

“Eight months is a long mistake.”

He glanced at his watch.

I saw it. So did my wolf.

Then he knelt. The room gasped. He reached for my hand and I pulled it back.

“Please. I love you. Give me a chance to make this right.”

“Did you love her?”

He hesitated. It lasted less than a second, but I smelled it, which meant the tea hadn’t completely dulled me after all.

“Get up.”

“Baby—”

“GET UP.”

He rose slowly, and the apology slid off his face like a coat. “Chloe never made me feel like I was failing her.”

My breath caught.

“You’ve always needed everything perfect, Emma. Perfect wedding, perfect future. I was tired of being tested.”

“So you slept with my best friend.”

He didn’t deny it. Instead, his voice dropped, flat and quiet, and the weight of his Alpha-blood pressed down on the room until the air itself felt heavy. “Think carefully about what you do next. If you walk out of this hotel, the alliance collapses. Your father loses his border. Your pack loses its protection. And you’ll be remembered as the Hart who broke the treaty, not as the woman I betrayed.”

“You’re right about one thing,” I said.

He waited.

“I did expect you to be the man you promised me you’d be.”

I walked past him. He caught my arm, and I looked down at his hand until he let go.

“Don’t make a scene,” he warned.

I smiled faintly. “You should have thought about that before you made me the bride in your little joke.”

I left the suite behind me. In the hall, the silence settled, and without the noise of my mother and Daniel I could finally think. Why had my wolf been silent for eight months? Why had I never smelled the lies?