Chapter 42

Ella POV

It had been a week since the attempted attack in the capital, and David had constantly sent flowers, balloons, fruit arrangements, and letters to the house. I had rejected all of them.

I knew that he must be getting frustrated, because I was as well. I just wanted him to leave me alone. Hadn't he done enough damage already? Even when only considering the pain he had caused me in this timeline, it was more than enough to justify why I never wanted to speak to him again.

Yet he persisted in proclaiming his love to me.

The media wasn't helping. This was just the kind of drama and scandal they loved. It was all over the internet.

I had deleted all of my social media profiles because I just couldn't take the messages any longer.

That's why it was such a relief when a friendly person reached out to me. It was Elizabeth. She invited me to get dinner with her in the capital.

My father agreed because the king's guards would be keeping an eye on us, so he knew that I would be safe.

It was the first time I had left our pack lands in a week, and I was relieved to get a change of scenery.

We ended up at a nice sit-down restaurant inside of the shopping center that Alexander had opened. I wasn't aware that they had such large restaurants inside.

It was a relaxed atmosphere, which I appreciated. I didn't feel like I had to perform at my highest level the way I did in fancier restaurants.

It had a dimly lit dining room with tables arranged in rows; each table had a small vase of flowers in the middle, and there were a few televisions around the room tuned to various stations. No one seemed to be watching them, but in case someone did get bored, it gave you something to look at.

"I'm so glad you were able to come out today," Elizabeth said as I approached the table where she was already seated.

"I'm so glad you invited me out," I replied. "You have no idea how much I needed this."

"I have a pretty good idea," she corrected me. "I'm sure that this whole situation has been miserable for you."

"It has," I said as I sat down. "I don't understand why he won't just leave me alone."

"It's shameful the way he's carrying on," she said. "I can't believe that his father allows him to behave this way. Doesn't he care at all about his pack's reputation?"

"He cares a great deal," I said. "But I think that's why David is trying so hard to get me to publicly accept his apology. He thinks that it will help his pack recover from the damage done by his behavior on our wedding night."

"It seems you really dodged a bullet," Elizabeth said. "If you hadn't caught him that night, you would have been married to that creep."

"I'm relieved as well," I said, looking down at my hands. "Although I wish I had realized sooner. I should never have forgiven him after the incident at our engagement dinner."

"You shouldn't blame yourself for that," Elizabeth said. "It's like you told me at the wedding—you loved him. You wanted to believe that what you had was real. It's romantic. I'm only sad that it ended the way that it did."

"So am I," I said. "But I guess I should have expected it. After all, Amanda is his fated mate."

"Plenty of people have happy marriages of choice," Elizabeth said. "The mate pull isn't everything."

"Although clearly, it was too much for David to resist," I said.

"There are plenty of other eligible men," Elizabeth said. "I'm sure that you'll find someone who truly makes you happy sooner than you expect."

I smiled slightly. "What makes you say that? Do you know something I don't know?"

Elizabeth laughed. "Not all of the publicity around this has been negative," she explained. "There are many people who take your side in this and find David's continued pursuit of you shameful."

"I'm happy to hear that," I said. "I would hate to think that my family's reputation would be harmed by this."

"He's not a hero," Elizabeth said. "He did the bare minimum by showing up to protect you. He should have raised the alarm as soon as he heard about the plan. Then that Rogue could have been captured in time."

"I hadn't thought of it that way," I said with a frown.

Elizabeth nodded. "It's true. My father feels that way, and his investigation has revealed that it would have been quite simple to track that Rogue down if they had known ahead of time that he was planning something. All David had to do was make a phone call, and it all could have been prevented."

"But he wanted the attention of saving me," I said with disgust. "So he allowed me to be attacked."

"That's the way it seems to me," Elizabeth said. "He really is the worst."

I nodded my agreement, and as I did, my eyes drifted away from Elizabeth and towards one of the screens mounted on the wall. My mouth fell open in shock as I saw David's face yet again.

"What is he doing now?" I muttered.

At my words, Elizabeth turned to see what I was looking at.

The volume was off, but the closed captions were turned on, so we could see what David was saying. He had an angry expression on his face as he spoke to someone, and it looked to me like he was in his own pack lands. It seemed that even he was being harassed by the press over this.

"I don’t want to speak to the media anymore. You’re just taking my words out of context and making things worse," the closed captions read clearly. "Ella will reconcile with me; you just wait and see. She’ll have to. Who else could love a heartless, cold, wolf-less woman like that anyway?"

I stared at the screen in shock. His words were so harsh and cruel; I couldn't believe that he was saying them publicly.

Elizabeth turned to look at me with concern on her face. She reached across the table and held my hand. "Don't worry about what he says. All he's done is make it clear what a cruel, heartless man he is," she said.

"But there will be people that side with him," I said. "There will be those who agree that I'm useless without my wolf."

"Those people are fools," Elizabeth said insistently. "You must not let their words hurt you."

I squeezed her hand gently. I knew that she was right, and I truly appreciated her comforting me in this moment. I hadn't expected to see something so harsh today. It caught me off guard, and maybe because of that, I found those words truly hurt.

I felt the sting of tears in my eyes, but I forced them back. "You're right," I said. "His words mean nothing to me."

Elizabeth patted my hand. "That's right. You don't need him and you certainly don't need his approval. Now let's have some fun and focus on something less depressing."

I laughed slightly and nodded as she handed me the drinks menu. "Of course you're right. We're here to have a good time, not to focus on the negatives."

I looked over the menu, but my mind was elsewhere.

If this was the way David was going to keep behaving, then I had to find a way to stop it. I couldn't allow him to do more damage to my reputation that would jeopardize everything that Alexander and I had planned.

I had to think of a way to put an end to these games.