Chapter 12 #3
"We used to walk for hours beyond the eastern ridge." Her smile softened with the memory. "He talked about the family he wanted, the children he hoped for, and the kind of father he planned to be." She studied my face carefully. "He always described the woman beside him the same way."
Another pause.
"Warm. Gentle. Someone who made a house feel like home before she ever spoke."
Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.
"I heard that dream so many times..." She smiled sadly. "I could have finished the sentences for him."
She watched me closely.
Waiting for me to wonder if I was the woman he'd imagined.
"I want you to understand — I won't pursue him.
I won't cause trouble for you or him, and I won't be the woman who can't accept what is," she said, looking me in the eye.
"But I need you to understand this, woman-to-woman, because you deserve to know.
If he comes to me," she added with confidence, "I won't turn him away. "
She was watching for the flinch. I didn't give it to her.
“Is that right?” I slowly began to approach her. I was done with the bullshit.
She examined me carefully. A change came over her expression — I watched her process it in real time, searching for the perspective that remained valid.
“Yes, men who are vulnerable, Destiny. They reach for what's familiar, what's safe.” Her eyes were steady and direct. "He found me at the bowling alley last night. He came to me.” She smirked.
"I told him I still love him," she said. "To his face. And I'm telling you the same because you deserve to hear it straight. I love him. I have always loved him. We are still scent matches, and until he is fully bonded —" she let the word hang for a beat, "— I am not done. I'm not leaving."
She thought that was the card. The unsealed bond, held up like a door still cracked open.
"You good?" I said.
She blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Are you done? I want to make sure before I speak."
Her jaw tightened, and she swallowed hard.
"I'm done," she said.
"Good." I lowered my arms and looked at her steadily.
"You walked in here this morning because you thought those walks meant something.
You thought you knew a version of Ty I didn't." I stepped closer, not to intimidate her, but close enough that she couldn't hide behind the story she'd built.
"You picked last night because he was vulnerable.
The triplets had him thinking about the future, so you reminded him of old conversations and hoped he'd mistake familiarity for love. "
She didn't answer.
I didn't need her to.
"But Ty doesn't confuse the two." My voice stayed calm.
"He told you exactly what those conversations were.
Every dream he shared, every future he imagined, every plan he made...
they were all for his fated mate. He just hadn't met her yet.
" I held her gaze. "You were never the destination, Jelisa.
You were simply there while he was finding his way to me. "
The room was very quiet.
"Then he came home," I said, "and told me everything, not because I asked. Because that's who Ty is. He doesn't build a life with me and keep pieces of himself elsewhere. He never has."
Something shifted across her face. The certainty she'd walked in with didn't disappear, but it no longer had anywhere to stand.
"And woman to woman..." I held her gaze.
"You don't know me. You see the warrior.
The woman who can put a blade through a man's throat without her pulse changing.
Facts." I took a measured step closer. "What you don't see is the woman he comes home to.
The one he laughs with. Sleeps beside. Dreams with.
The one he trusts with every part of himself. "
I let the silence settle between us.
"You thought those walks made you his safe place." My voice stayed calm. "They didn't. They helped him understand what he wanted. I am where he found it."
Jelisa didn't answer. There was nothing more for her to say. Because the strategy was gone. What remained was simply a woman who had loved a man for a long time, finally standing at the place where his heart had chosen someone else.
"Understood," she said finally. Quiet. No edge left in it.
She walked to the door, and she did not look back.
I stood in the training room long after Jelisa left.
Not because she'd shaken me.
Because she'd shown me something I hadn't fully seen until now.
Ty hadn't waited for the compound to settle or for gossip to find me. He'd seen her at the bowling alley and closed that door himself. Not because I demanded it. Not because he owed me an explanation.
Because that's who he is.
Then he'd come home and told me everything.
Not once had he hidden behind silence or left me wondering. The distance between us had never been his. I had been measuring it, guarding it, deciding when to close it.
He never built the wall.
He'd been standing on the other side all along, steady as water, waiting for me to trust that he wasn't going anywhere.
A slow smile found me.
Jelisa walked in here thinking she had something I didn't.
She didn't.
She had memories.
I had the man.
I grabbed my towel.
I had somewhere to be.