Chapter Seventeen #6
As he said, I’d felt abandoned. I’d felt rejected and lost and so fucking angry that I carried it with me for years and clung to it like a safety net, even when it all started to appeal to me.
Those emotions—the recollection of how I’d struggled to cope, how he’d discarded us like scum—were all I had to protect myself from what I feared most. I’d tried to avoid tangling myself in a scenario where I could have everything I wanted, dodging the potential of losing it again.
My initial encounter with Caine had soured my hopes of finding a love like my parents’, a bond built on trust and mutual respect.
It had worked in my favour. He’d turned me bitter against my designation—losing control and winding up pregnant to a man who didn’t give a shit about me.
I’d experienced firsthand how lowly omegas were regarded, and I’d decided it would serve me better to be on my own than to chance twining my fate with another Alpha like Caine.
The experience had opened my eyes, given me the kick up the arse I’d needed to once again set aside my pathetic fantasies and focus on what was important.
Minnie was enough, my bond with her should have been enough.
But for some twisted fucking reason, after all of the obstacles and despair, even with my motives and every ounce of determination I had, the barest sliver of my heart clearly refused to listen to logic.
Was it the safety he offered? The security?
The provisions? Why was it so impossible to close myself off completely when I knew it would only end in blood or heartache? Or both.
It was simpler in the beginning. Old wounds had reopened as soon as I’d seen his face again, and I’d been single-minded in my hostility.
Dead set on not considering this as anything more than what it was: a better life for Minnie.
Except Caine had swanned in and pissed all over that objective.
Always changing the rules. Always changing in general, and hating him was no longer as easy as it had been.
He didn’t try to tame me, not really. He retaliated whenever I confronted him, barked commands because he was used to getting his own way, but he never forced me to heel or “trained” me.
At our mating, he was on his best behaviour just as much as I had to be, but the rest of the time, there were no restrictions.
He never tried to quiet my voice or strip me of my personality.
He compromised. It was the bare minimum, but other Alphas in his position might not have been so lenient.
It was more than anyone else had given me.
And if it were a possibility, I suspected he’d unclip the reins entirely.
It was a practical arrangement, but also a relatively fair one.
Even if we had to comply with tradition for the sake of combating opposition, we were on even footing.
He never took me without my consent—again, basic decency, but in a world where omegas were property, it was a fucking novelty.
He let me taunt him, challenge him. He waited until I offered him my obedience instead of demanding it. He worked for it.
He tilted my perception of what I’d expected this to be.
That night with the camera was a shift. I’d wanted him to see me like that—wanted him to want me.
The contract was heats and ruts, but I’d violated those terms just to evoke desire in a man who I apparently didn’t even like.
I obviously lusted after the guy. He was attractive, and my body craved his ruthless touches even if my mind was conflicted, but . . . was it more than that?
No.
It couldn’t be.
I glanced up at him. He was staring into the flames, his expression neutral and his shoulders visibly unwound. He looked softer. Approachable. A more transparent version of the man I’d faced at the Den all those months ago. How long had he not been that man?
Caine didn’t want a love match. It was evident he didn’t even believe it was a possibility, so why make me doubt absolutely everything?
Why was he doing more than the contract dictated and staging reality on the inside instead of just on the exterior?
Why tell me about not knowing Minnie existed?
He’d kept it a secret this long, clearly content with me hating him for it, so what had changed?
Coldness. Distance. Isolation. That was what I’d predicted when I signed myself over to him. A mating of convenience. No tenderness, no mingling, no gestures he disguised as honouring his obligation to me but were completely unnecessary.
I ripped my gaze away. I had to retreat before it was too late, before my brain invented fanciful notions out of scraps.
It was for the best. I didn’t want to invest myself in a deception and be left stranded again, didn’t want to hope for connections only to lose them whenever the shiny newness of my attitude wore off for him.
I’d known it already, and I’d still let my mask slip.
Why was it so hard for me to pretend that what we could have wasn’t everything I’d always wanted?