The Alpha I Rejected Came For Me

Regrets Are A Thing Of The Past, Are They? ( Part Two)

Andrea's POV

Love? Yeah, one word, one simple word, and yet it carries so much. If you ask me, that's just way too much responsibility for one word. Because even though love is a single word, it stands for so many others.

Because it isn't just a simple word; it's a noun and a verb. That word carries so much, but the most important of all is the base of it all: the truth. Love is a doing word. It needs actions.

And there is one thing I know to be true about love: it isn't supposed to hurt like this. As calm as I was on the outside, I wanted to tear Ethan from limb to limb.

The table was silent for a moment. Everyone stole glances between Ethan and me, like they didn't hear what I just said to him. I will admit this much: I left most of myself back home. I didn't bring my rough side with me because if I had, this table would have been flipped over by now.

So, I have always been on the reserved side. Besides Mandy (who has seen me in action), everyone thinks I am just a defenseless, orphaned omega from out of town.

I had to suppress my Pheromones because they're stronger than his; I had to become weaker so that he could stand tall. Everything he is today, I gave to him. I protected his ego and all of that, I did because I loved him. Now, I am not so sure.

Even though I wasn't saying anything, the silence was too loud, and you could literally cut the tension with a knife.

Finally, my mother-in-law broke the silence. It had been a few seconds since I said that Gina could stay, and yet every second that had passed felt like hours.

" My daughter-in-law is too kind-hearted to say no! But I am not!" my mother-in-law said and looked at Gina with the authority of a highborn Omega and the woman in charge.

" My son might be too blind to see what's happening, but I am not. I have seen plenty of women like you before. Do you think that you can just marry up? That you can come into my family and take over?

That is not going to happen. Andrea might be an orphan, but unlike you, she knows how to be a proper wife to a Don. You will never measure up to her," my mother-in-law said while swinging the glass of wine in her hand. At the end of the sentence, she threw the wine on Gina.

This wasn't a surprise to me at all. Even though the old Don was in charge, everyone often whispered that she was the one in charge, that Ethan's father wouldn't have been where he is without her help.

It's pretty much the same way I have been. You see, even though Ethan is an illegitimate son, his stepmother never treated him unfairly. This woman had every reason to hate him.

Her husband had a baby with another woman just after they got married; still, she accepted him as her own and raised him well. As for me, she didn't care where I came from. She didn't even care that I was not from their Country; she took me in not just as a daughter-in-law but as a daughter.

Marrying into a family like this isn't easy, and unlike me, she's more of a noble lady. She was born into class, and with that, she molded the old Don into the man he was, rough on the edges, but very refined.

The Voss family, on the other hand, they're savages. If she wasn't strong, they would have eaten her up and spit her out. Now I know that I can handle them. It's just that my mother-in-law never gave me a chance because she always stood up for me.

I just didn't think that a day would come when she would have to defend me against her own son.

Just like she was on cue, Gina's eyes welled up. She grabbed Ethan's arms and looked at him with pitiful eyes. Honestly, she did look pitiful. Her face was soaked in wine, and her lip was even quivering, as if she was too afraid to say anything; she began to sob.

With that, my dear husband jumped out of his seat and gave Gina his handkerchief, ignoring all the napkins on the table. He pulled Gina into his arms protectively and then shot a glance at me.

" This is all your fault!" he said to me with a cold face.

" Everyone knows how much my mother loves you. Everyone treats you like royalty because she's backing you, isn't that enough?

Gina is my assistant, and you let my mother do this to her? It's our anniversary, and she came here to celebrate with us. As the host, shouldn't you be more welcoming?

As for my mother, you are known to be a proper lady. What are people supposed to say about the matriarch of the Voss family if she goes splashing people with wine in public?" He continued to say.

All the while, he was holding on to Gina as if she was some petrified Omega, protecting her like he would die if anything happened to her.

" What the hell, bro... What are you doing?" His brother said to him.

" Enough!" Ethan's father said with a roar that filled the whole room.

" You!" he said and pointed at Gina. "Get out!" he continued to say.

"As I said, you have everyone standing up for you. Andy, did you forget that you're the wife of a Don? You can't hide behind them forever, you know," he said to me.

" I said enough, boy!" his father roared again.

One look, and even Ethan knew that he couldn't win this one. His father used the tone he used when he was about to lose his cool.

" Gina, I'll take you home," Ethan said.

" You will not!" his father said, then called one of his men and asked him to take Gina.

Ethan might run the family right now, but until his father gives him full authority, he is still under his father. He can not defy him.

" Was that necessary?" Ethan said to his father flatly.

" Absolutely," his father said.

In this family, only his father knows how deep I am involved in the shadow underworld, which is why he approached me and basically begged for this marriage. He knows that I am the one who helped Ethan become the powerhouse he is today.

So, he will stand up for me, even if it's against his most beloved son. Ethan has always been able to get away with things when it comes to his father. What happened surprised even him.

" Andy..." Mandy said to me in a low tone. I turned and looked at her.

" You're quiet, too quiet... I don't like it," she said to me, whispering the last part.

Everyone is shocked by my husband's reaction tonight, but I have been dealing with this for the last six months, and I never told anyone.

It isn't just about him defending her; I've had to deal with him coming home late, smelling like her pheromones. I have had to deal with all the nights I have had to spend alone at home while he went out of town for supposed business meetings and dealings.

I have had to deal with the fact that my husband has even gone as far as buying his new secretary a condo because her place was too far from the office.

And yeah, did I mention that my husband has even gone as far as soothing Gina with his pheromones? Because it's what his brother would have wanted him to do. "Help his sister."

Seeing how everyone's reaction was tonight, I am glad that I never said anything, because then it would have been a lot worse; Gina might even be at the bottom of a lake somewhere, and Ethan would have blamed me for all of it.

I am not the most forgiving person, but I made a promise to myself when I left home that I wouldn't be so cold-hearted anymore, that I would be more tolerant, and that I would learn to give people second chances.

So when I married Ethan, I promised myself that I would give him second chances, but even then, I had to have boundaries. Five chances, that's all he had, and tonight, he just used up his fifth one, and he doesn't even know it.

I have had six months to accept that my marriage is over. Ethan used to be head over heels with me. The man made me the envy of every woman in this country, and I honestly thought it was love.

You see, with my first love, it wasn't planned; I didn't even know I was in love with him until I spent the night with him, but with Ethan, it's different. I loved him on purpose; I willingly gave my heart to him.

I wasn't looking for anyone when he came my way. I have had to change so much of myself to make him happy, and now, I regret it all. All those years I spent on him, I regretted every minute of it.

" Andrea..." Ethan said softly and grabbed my hand. As if he finally noticed that I was there, that I wasn't okay.

" What are you thinking, baby? You know that nothing is going on between Gina and me, right?" he said to me.

I didn't say anything. Not because I didn't know what to say or because I was afraid to speak; I was simply over everything. As I said, I have had six months to deal with this, and I know more than he thinks I do.

I took a deep breath and finally stood up. I'm glad that there wasn't anyone else here, that it was just family, because this moment, it would have been far more embarrassing.

" Everyone..." I said with a forced smile.

" I want to apologize for my husband, mom, and dad. Gina is very good at her work, and yes, it was wrong of him to bring him here without telling us," I said and looked at Ethan. I raised an eyebrow.

" What?" he asked.

" Apologize to your parents. You shouldn't have spoken to them like that," I said to him firmly.

I didn't tell him to apologize for bringing Gina because I knew that won't ever happen, so instead, I made him see where he was genuinely wrong without throwing it in his face.

He didn't fight. He stood up and bowed to his parents.

"I apologize. I shouldn't have lost my cool," he said to them.

His father didn't say anything, and neither did his mother. Instead, she looked at me with questions in her eyes. Woman to woman, I think that she already knew what was in my heart.

In the last four years that I have been married in this family, she's the one who knows me best. She taught me a lot, and yet she always knew that I wasn't like her, that my patience had its limits.

" Now that it's done, I think that we should continue with our dinner. It is still our anniversary celebration, right?" I said to Ethan and sat back down. Ethan took my hand and kissed it.

" Of course..." he said with a smile.

" Andy, are you sure?" my mother-in-law asked.

" Come on, Mom, we know they always make up. They love each other, right, sis?" Ethan's little brother said with a smile.

The doors opened, and the waiters came in wheeling trays of dishes before I could give him an answer.