Her Mate's Scandalous Betrayal

Episode 6

JAMES

"James?" Lucas asked, before he reached out to steady my shoulder.

"Get in the car," I choked out, pushing his hand away and diving into the backseat of the black Mercedez G-Wagon.

The entire ride back to my residential building was a silent, suffocating nightmare.

I stared blindly out the tinted windows, the image of those brilliant blue eyes burning a hole through my mind, my chest violently heaving as I struggled to process the sheer magnitude of my own cruelty.

Hours later, the sun dipped below the New York skyline, casting long, dark shadows across the pristine hardwood floors of my sprawling penthouse apartment.

I walked through the heavy front doors, feeling completely hollowed out, a ghost haunting my own excessively lavish life.

The penthouse was massive, cold, and entirely devoid of the warmth that Georgia used to bring into a room.

"You're home late," a voice called out from the living area.

I slowly turned my head, my eyes landing on Betty as she walked toward me with a glass of expensive red wine in her hand.

She was wearing a sleek silk robe, her dark hair perfectly styled, her face practically flawless.

She was my fated mate. She was the woman I had destroyed my marriage for.

And as I looked at her standing there in my living room, I felt absolutely nothing.

There was no spark, no warmth, no primal pull in my gut.

Compared to the blinding, consuming fire that had nearly burned me alive when I looked at Georgia in that boardroom this morning, Betty felt like a cold, empty void.

"Traffic was heavy," I lied smoothly, shrugging off my suit jacket and tossing it carelessly over the back of a pristine white sofa.

"Is something wrong?" Betty asked, her perfectly plucked eyebrows knitting together in a display of concern as she stepped closer, reaching a hand out to touch my chest.

I flinched internally at her touch, stepping back under the guise of walking toward the sprawling dining table.

"Nothing is wrong," I told her, my voice going deliberately cold and distant. "It was just a long day of difficult negotiations."

"Well, dinner is ready," she smiled, clearly ignoring my icy demeanor as she gestured toward the plates set up on the long glass table.

I sat down in the heavy leather chair, staring blankly at the perfectly cooked steak resting on the expensive porcelain plate in front of me.

"How did the clothing contract go?" Betty asked casually, taking a sip of her wine as she sat across from me.

"They passed," I answered shortly, picking up my heavy silver fork and stabbing a piece of meat without any intention of eating it.

"Oh, well," Betty dismissed easily, waving a manicured hand in the air. "It's just clothes. You have bigger acquisitions to worry about."

I looked up at her, my jaw clenching so hard I could hear the bones creak in my head.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to flip the massive glass table over and shatter it into a million pieces.

I was sitting across from the woman who had demanded my absolute loyalty, keeping a massive, life-altering secret buried deep in my chest.

My thoughts were nothing short of a violent storm of self-loathing in that moment, as the image of my beautiful daughter haunting every single thought that crossed my mind.

I barely touched my food, pushing the cold pieces of steak around the plate while Betty chattered endlessly about society events and trivial pack gossip.

I kept Georgia and the child a total, impenetrable secret, knowing exactly how manipulative and jealous Betty could be if she felt her position was threatened.

I survived the suffocating evening, retreating to my study the moment dinner was cleared away, locking the heavy mahogany doors behind me.

I spent the entire night awake, staring at the glowing screen of my laptop, tracing the lines of my daughter's face with a trembling finger, my heart breaking into a thousand jagged pieces over and over again.

By the time the sun began to rise over the city, casting a pale gray light through the study windows, the crushing guilt had morphed into something entirely different.

It had hardened into a cold, lethal determination.

I used my immense wealth, my elite security teams, and the terrifying weight of my Alpha status to launch a relentless, overnight hunt.

I needed to know exactly what happened five years ago.

It was incredibly difficult; medical records had been scrubbed clean, and pack members were terrified to speak to my operatives, but my ruthless persistence finally paid off.

At exactly nine o'clock the next morning, my custom-made Italian shoes were echoing sharply against the pristine tile floors of a highly exclusive, private medical clinic on the Upper East Side.

I bypassed the protesting receptionists, my sheer physical presence and the dark, murderous aura rolling off my body forcing them to step back in fear.

I pushed the door to the head doctor's office open, stepping inside and quietly clicking the lock shut behind me.

Dr. Lexie looked up from her desk, the color instantly draining from her face as the pen she was holding slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the hardwood desk.

"Alpha," Dr. Lexie breathed out, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and profound terror the moment she got a whiff of my dangerous aura.

"Doctor," I replied, my voice terrifyingly calm, a dead, flat tone that masked the hair-trigger of rage and desperation vibrating just beneath my skin.

I walked slowly across the expensive Persian rug, pulling up a sleek guest chair and sitting down directly across from her.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Chestnut?" Dr. Lexie asked, desperately trying to regain her professional composure, though her hands were visibly trembling on her desk.

"I want the medical records from the night Georgia was admitted to the Pack hospital five years ago," I stated plainly, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Dr. Lexie lied, her voice shaking slightly. "Those records were destroyed when the old hospital wing was renovated."

"Do not lie to me, Lexie," I growled, letting a fraction of my dominant, aggressive aura bleed into the small room, making the air feel heavy and suffocating.

"I am bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, Alpha," she argued, lifting her chin in a brave but foolish display of defiance. "I cannot disclose anything."

"I am not asking for a consultation," I told her, my voice dropping to a harsh, lethal whisper. "I am demanding the truth about my mate."

"She is not your mate anymore," Dr. Lexie snapped back, her own protective anger flashing in her eyes. "You made sure of that when you served her divorce papers while she was lying unconscious in a hospital bed."

The words struck me like a physical blow, a sharp agonizing pain lancing directly through my heart.

"She was pregnant," I said, my voice cracking slightly under the immense emotional pressure.

Dr. Lexie froze, staring at me with wide, panicked eyes, realizing immediately that I already knew the secret she had guarded for half a decade.

"Wasn't she?" I demanded, standing up from the chair and slamming both of my heavy hands flat onto her desk, leaning over her with a terrifying intensity.

"Alpha, please," Dr. Lexie whimpered, pressing her back hard against her leather chair as I tortured her with my aura.

"Answer the damn question!" I roared, the walls of the small office vibrating with the sheer, unbridled force of my Alpha command.

Broken down by the overwhelming pressure of my aura, Dr. Lexie finally snapped, tears welling up in her eyes as she yelled back at me.

"Yes!" she cried out, her voice echoing in the sudden silence of the room. "Yes, she was pregnant, James. She was exactly four weeks pregnant with your child on the very day you signed those divorce papers and banished her from her own home!"

I stopped breathing.

I stood completely frozen over the desk, the absolute truth crashing down on me like a collapsing building, burying me under thousands of tons of heavy, suffocating rubble.

"She had nothing," Dr. Lexie wept quietly, wiping her face with trembling hands. "She had no money, no family, and nowhere to go. And she was carrying your pup while you paraded another woman around the pack house."

Every single word was a rusted knife twisting brutally into my gut.

I slowly pushed myself back from the desk, my legs feeling numb and unsteady, the entire room spinning wildly around me.

I was completely shattered.

The weight of my unforgivable sins, the sheer magnitude of the pain I had inflicted on the only woman who had ever truly loved me, brought me to the very edge of total collapse.

I turned around without saying another word to the weeping doctor, unlocking the heavy door and stepping blindly out into the hallway, walking out of the sterile clinic and stepping onto the bright, sunlit sidewalks of the city.

The busy, chaotic noise of New York continued all around me, but inside my head, there was only a sharp, ringing silence.

I feel like crawling into a dark corner to drown in my own pathetic misery. But I knew it would never help. It never did.

But I made up my mind that I will endure any insult, swallow any humiliation, and spend every last dime of my massive fortune to earn her forgiveness.

And I will do absolutely anything, cross any line, and break any rule to be the father to my beautiful daughter and the devoted mate to the only woman I realized I actually, desperately loved.

She was mine.

And I was going to get her back.