THE ALPHA’S REGRET

CHAPTER FOUR

The voices climbed the stairwell before the footsteps did.

“Absolutely humiliating.” Catherine’s voice, sharp enough to cut through two closed doors. “Do you understand how many people saw that?”

“I know, Mother.” Tony, flat. Tired.

“Do you? Because right now our name is attached to a girl who walked into a charity gala covered in filth.”

Leslie sat up on the bed, every muscle locking at once.

“Where is she?”

“Her room, probably.”

“Good. I want to speak with her.”

“Mother.”

“Now, Tony.”

The footsteps started again, heavier this time, and stopped outside her door. Three sharp knocks.

“Leslie. Open this door.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“I don’t care.”

Leslie’s hands shook as she turned the lock. The door swung open before she could step back, and Catherine filled the frame, gray hair pulled tight, black pantsuit pressed to a knife’s edge. Tony hovered behind her in the hallway, arms crossed, eyes fixed somewhere on the floor.

“Sit.”

Leslie sat.

Catherine didn’t. She stood over her, the way a teacher stands over a child who’s disappointed her one too many times.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“I don’t want excuses. I want to know how you intend to fix it.”

“Fix what? I don’t even know how something like that happens.”

“Don’t play stupid with me.” Catherine’s voice dropped, which somehow made it worse. “You embarrassed this family in front of half the city tonight.”

“Someone put that in my hair.” Leslie’s voice cracked but held. “I didn’t know it was there until it was too late.”

“And whose fault is that? A woman with any sense checks her surroundings. Watches who’s near her. You did neither.”

“I tried to.”

“You ran through a parking lot sobbing. You turned one humiliation into another.”

You made a scene out of a scene.” Catherine’s mouth curled. “You couldn’t have drawn more attention if you’d planned it.”

“They were laughing at me.”

“Because you gave them something to laugh at.” Catherine’s eyes swept over her, cold and assessing. “Everyone in that room could see exactly what you are.”

“And what’s that?”

“Common.” Catherine said it like a diagnosis. “Desperate. Everything this family has spent generations trying not to be.”

Tony shifted in the doorway. “Mother, that’s enough.”

“It is not enough.” She rounded on him, and for a second his jaw tightened, the only c***k in his composure. “You brought her into this house. You married her. Now we live with what that’s cost us.”

She turned back before he could answer.

“Someone at that gala wanted this to happen to you,” Catherine said, watching Leslie’s face carefully. “That much is obvious. What isn’t obvious is why anyone would bother.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, like she was weighing something and deciding not to say it. “Fortunate for you, I suppose, that it isn’t my problem to solve.”

Leslie’s stomach dropped, but she said nothing. There was nowhere safe to take that thought.

“From now on,” Catherine went on, “you go nowhere without my approval. You wear nothing without my approval. You speak to no one without my approval. Is that clear?”

“Yes.” The word barely made it out.

“I asked if that’s clear.”

“Yes.” Louder. Hollow.

“Good.” Catherine’s gaze dropped, disgusted, to the damp towel still knotted at Leslie’s chest. “Clean yourself up. You still smell like garbage.”

She swept out without another glance.

Tony lingered a moment longer, one hand braced on the doorframe. Leslie looked up at him, some small useless part of her still hoping he’d say something different than his mother. That he’d defend her. That he’d sound, for one second, like a husband instead of a bystander.

He shook his head instead.

“You really f****d up tonight, Leslie.”

Then he was gone too, the door clicking shut behind him.

She sat alone in the silence that followed, staring at the space where he’d stood.

The tears came slower this time, quieter, like something too tired to fight its way out. She pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her face against them, shoulders shaking, until the room blurred and the ache in her throat became the only thing she could feel.

Somewhere beneath the crying, a single thought surfaced and wouldn’t sink back down.

Catherine hadn’t asked who did it.

She’d already known someone had.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Meanwhile, 200 miles away, behind concrete walls and razor wire…