Chapter 11
CLAIRE
“Interesting performance,” Louis sneers, blocking me. “The dip was theatrical.”
“Move out of my way, Louis.” I try to move, but he steps in my path.
“You really expect anyone to believe that—”
“I don’t care what anyone believes.” I hold his gaze, steady, clear. “I’m having the best night I’ve had in over a year.”
His eyes narrow. His hand finds my elbow, fingers tightening. “You always needed propping up. Some things don’t change.”
I yank my arm free, but the words jam somewhere inside. He’s always had a way of looking at me as though I’m beneath his notice, and every sharp response I should make disappears, leaving me feeling small, flustered, and foolish.
“Three Alphas, Claire? Really?” Louis says. “Could you be any more obvious? Everyone’s laughing at you.”
My stomach curdles with anger, with the ache that what he’s saying is true.
He’s leaning against the bar, wearing that same easy smile he always uses when he wants to make cruelty sound reasonable.
“Louis.” His name comes out wobbly, and I hate that he can still do this to me. One look, one comment, and suddenly I’m back in our kitchen trying to explain why something he said hurt while he watches me struggle for words.
His gaze moves over me slowly. “The pack, the entrance, all of it. This isn’t you. Don’t pretend, because men like that don’t go for Omegas like you. This won’t last.”
Fury burns through me. “You don’t know what’s me,” I snap. The answer comes too fast, catching on the way out. I wish it sounded stronger.
He gives a quiet laugh. “I know you better than that. You hate attention and crowds. You barely wanted to leave the house when we were together, and now you’re parading three men around like you’ve become someone else overnight. Yeah, sure.”
My hands tighten into a ball. “Maybe I didn’t want to leave the house because every time I did, you made me feel like I was doing something wrong.”
His expression barely changes, but I spot the irritation under it all.
“Don’t do that,” he states. “Don’t rewrite everything because you’re embarrassed.”
I’m trembling. People are moving behind him, music filling the room, glasses clinking, but all I can hear is my own breathing getting faster.
“You always do this,” I go on. “You say something awful, and then when I react, you act like I’m confused. Or dramatic. Or too sensitive. You gaslight me all the time.”
His mouth tightens. “You were happier being miserable, Claire. At least then you had an excuse.”
For a second, I can’t speak. My face is burning, my chest too tight, and every clever response disappears. He studies me as if he’s already won and he knows I’ll fold because I always did.
But I’m so tired of bowing to him.
“Maybe I was miserable because you made sure I was,” I state, and the sentence comes out uneven. “Maybe every time I started feeling good about myself, you found a way to ruin it.”
He leans closer. “You really believe that?”
“Yes. You liked me easier to control.” I square my shoulders, even if I’m shaking all over.
His eyes sharpen.
And my anger keeps pushing through the fear. “And you don’t get to stand here and tell me who I am anymore,” I continue. “You picked someone else, took the ring, and walked out, so you don’t get to come back whenever you’re bored and crawl into my head.”
“Claire—” His eyes are wide.
“No.” I almost stumble over the word, but I force it out again. “I blocked your number. I don’t want your texts, I don’t want your opinions, and I don’t give a fuck whether you think this is real.”
His expression shifts, something colder moving behind his eyes.
“You know what?” I state. “Just fuck off, Louis.” The words leave me breathless. For one terrifying second, I think I might cry with the emotions rattling through me.
“None of them are going to stay. You’re too much work, Claire. You always were a bitch.” Then he marches away, shoving his way through the crowd.
Suddenly, I need air. I can’t face anyone, as my face is on fire and tears are welling in my eyes, my chest cracking.
I slip away, duck behind a column, and find a door. Storage room. Catering trolleys, stacked chairs, a single bare bulb. I don’t care. I hurry inside, pulling the door closed, then press my back to the wall.
Four breaths in. Hold. Four exhales out.
Every inch of me is shaking. I wrap my arms around myself, but it does nothing to contain the anger, humiliation, and hurt tearing around beneath my skin.
I told him to fuck off. I finally said it, and somehow I still feel like the loser.
Even now, months after he left, he still reduces me to this within minutes, trembling in a room full of stacked chairs and folded tablecloths while everyone else laughs and drinks on the other side of the wall.
My lungs refuse to fill properly. I press both palms against the cool stone behind me and focus on the roughness beneath them, forcing myself to name what’s real.
Stone. Floor. Shelves. Music muffled through the door.
My glasses sliding down my nose. I breathe in slowly, but the air catches halfway and breaks apart in my chest.
I hate him.
But I hate that part of me that still believes him.
That’s when the door creaks open behind me, and I flinch so hard my shoulder strikes the wall, thinking he’s followed me.
I glance up in the dimly lit room and spot Brody slipping inside.
He shuts the door gently, and his expression changes when he sees my face, but he doesn’t rush toward me or ask five questions at once.
He crosses to the opposite wall and leans there, giving me space while making it clear he isn’t leaving.
“Hey,” he says softly.
“I just needed a minute.” My voice sounds scraped raw, and that nearly starts the tears. “I’m fine. I mean, I will be. I just need my body to stop behaving like I’m being chased through the woods.”
“Take ten minutes,” he says. “Take an hour. Nobody out there gets to decide when you’re ready.”
The words loosen the thickness inside me, but before I can answer, the door opens again.
Corey steps in, glances from Brody to me, and the grin he entered with disappears. He shuts the door with his heel, then perches on the edge of a catering trolley, close enough to stay with me but not close enough to crowd me.
“Is this where everyone interesting disappeared to?” he asks, his tone deliberately light. “Because your aunt just cornered me beside the bar and asked whether I eat carbs. I think she might have been hitting on me.”
A shaky laugh catches in my throat despite everything. “She asks everyone that.”
“She looked deeply disappointed when I said yes to carbs. I may have ruined whatever future she was planning for us.”
Brody’s mouth twitches, but his attention stays on me.
The door opens a third time, and Jakob fills the frame. He takes in my wet eyes, the way I’m gripping my own arms, and the two men positioned around the room. Then he steps inside, draws the door closed, and rests against it with his arms folded.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
The question is so direct that I blink. “No.”
“Did he touch you?”
“No. He just…” My throat tightens again.
“He cornered me and started saying all the things he always did. That everyone is laughing at me. That this isn’t who I am.
That I’m performing because I could never actually be happy.
” I rub my hands over my arms, trying to erase the crawling sensation Louis left behind.
“And I told him to fuck off, which should feel amazing, but it doesn’t.
I’m still shaking, and I’m furious that he still does this to me.
And I’m sure you three don’t need to worry or see me like this, as I know it’s not part of our deal. ”
Jakob pushes away from the door. “I’ll be back.”
My head lifts. “Where are you going?”
“To have a conversation with Louis.”
Corey slides off the trolley. “I’ll come. I’m excellent at clarifying consequences.”
“No.” The word comes out sharp, and all three of them stop. “Please don’t. I don’t want a scene or a fight. I don’t want him turning this into another story where I’m unstable and brought three Alphas to threaten him.”
Jakob’s jaw tightens, but he stays where he is. “Then I won’t touch him.”
“That wasn’t as reassuring as you intended,” Brody says.
“I can be very clear without touching anyone.”
Corey nods thoughtfully. “It’s true and very unsettling.”
Another laugh escapes me, and Corey’s expression softens as if that was all he was trying to earn.
Brody crosses the room slowly, stopping within reach rather than taking it for granted. “Do you want us close?”
I nod before embarrassment can interfere.
He steps in first, his fingers curling gently around my wrist and easing my hand away from the death grip I have on my own arm.
Corey moves to my other side, his warmth settling beside me, while Jakob remains in front of me, watchful and controlled, as though Louis is on the other side of the door and Jakob is personally holding the entire room between us.
“He knows exactly what to say to make me feel stupid,” I whisper. “I had things I wanted to tell him, but the second he started, my head went blank.”
“That doesn’t mean he was right,” Brody says. His thumb moves slowly over my pulse. “It means he spent too long learning where to hurt you.”
Corey’s mouth loses every trace of humor. “A man who has to confuse you before he can win an argument isn’t clever, Claire. He’s just a coward.”
I swallow hard.
Jakob’s gaze holds mine. “You told him to leave you alone while you were frightened and overwhelmed. That took more strength than standing there calmly would have.”
The tears threaten again, but these feel different. Less like Louis taking something from me and more like the three men around me are quietly putting pieces back.
“I hate that you’re seeing me like this,” I admit and pinch my lips together.
Brody’s eyes soften. “Like what?”
“Falling apart.”
Jakob studies me for a moment. “All I see is a woman who kept standing long after someone made a habit of trying to knock her down. You’re allowed to shake afterward.”