Chapter 484

Olivia

“You and Dan have only been married for four years?”

As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I cringed at what I had just said. “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, sitting up a little straighter. “I didn’t mean—”

But Clarissa just chuckled. “No, no, it’s okay,” she said. “I know it’s a bit of a shock, seeing as how we’re both in our middle age. But yes, we’ve only been married for four years. We met eight years ago.”

“I see.” I chewed my lip for a moment as I thought back on what Clarissa had said that day when she visited before the Valentine’s Day gala—how she had always wanted a family, but never had one. She hadn’t gone into detail about it.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” I said cautiously, leaning forward, “before Dan, were you… were you ever married at all?”

For a moment, Clarissa opened her mouth and drew in a deep breath as if to speak. But then she froze, blinking at me for a few long seconds. Her eyes seemed almost to grow dull, or rather glaze over.

Then, after a painstakingly long moment of staring at each other, she suddenly smiled and shook her head as if she hadn’t frozen up at all.

“No,” she said. “Believe it or not, I was actually always single before I met Dan. He was my first.”

“And her last.”

Dan’s voice coming from behind me out of seemingly nowhere caused me to almost jump out of my chair. I whipped my head around to see him standing there with a glass of wine in his hand, swirling the red liquid around as he stared down at me.

I swallowed as I looked up at him. There was a smile on his face, and yet… There was something in his eyes. Something dark. Something dangerous.

Out of instinct, I stood and offered him a stiff smile. “Dan,” I said as politely as I could muster. “I didn’t know you were standing there.”

Dan simply chuckled. “Clarissa often complains of my silent movements,” he said coolly. “I have a habit of sneaking up on her.”

I stared at Dan for a moment, unsure of what to say. As I looked at him, images of the gender reveal party flashed through my mind; images of Clarissa wincing when his hand moved behind her back. Yes, maybe he did have a habit of… sneaking up on her.

But Clarissa stood, then, and crossed over to him.

There was a pleasant smile on her face as she wrapped both of her arms around his broad body and rested her head on his chest. In this moment, she looked nothing at all like a woman in distress.

If anything, they appeared to be a perfectly normal, happy couple.

“He does tend to sneak up on people,” she said with a laugh. “I’ve always said he was an assassin in his past life.”

“Or in his current life,” my wolf growled in the back of my head.

Finally, Nathan returned holding two plates of food. He set them down on the table and glanced between the three of us; I knew he sensed the slight tension, but he didn’t say anything about it.

“I must say, Dan, your speech was impressive earlier,” he said politely. “The point you made about the northern wildfires should affect a lot of people.”

“Hopefully for the better,” Dan said, raising his glass a bit. “Those northern leaders need to get their acts together. People cannot be losing their homes due to these fires. After all, where will they go?”

I gestured around us. “I suppose you’ve got the space here,” I said with a laugh. “This building alone is massive.”

A joke. That was what it was meant to be. Something lighthearted, not entirely serious but also not entirely incorrect. After all, it was true; Dan’s territory had plenty of money and space to take in refugees of natural disasters.

And yet…

“Hardly.” Dan’s arm seemed to tighten around Clarissa, and his eyes seemed to flash in that dangerous way that I was beginning to know so well. I felt my wolf bristle inside of me; she felt it, too.

Danger.

“I only meant…” I began, but my voice trailed off beneath the heat of his subtle yet terrifying gaze.

“Ah, Olivia,” Nathan, ever the mitigator, said with a chuckle as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. More of a protective gesture than anything, it seemed. “Always the philanthropist.”

“Yes.” Dan straightened and took a sip of his wine. “Perhaps, Olivia, you can throw one of your little charity galas. After all, that’s what these people truly need: funding.”

I could tell that Dan’s words—especially his use of the word ‘little’—were meant to cut deep. But if anything, they just gave me more drive. I straightened as well and met his Alpha gaze head-on.

“Perhaps I will.”

There was a stiff silence between the four of us then. The luncheon around us buzzed with activity, but I felt as if we were trapped inside our own little bubble of tension and silence.

But then, finally, the tension lifted when the music began to play.

Clarissa tugged on Dan’s hand. “Let’s dance, darling,” she said. “I’m dying to move around.”

“Of course. Enjoy the luncheon, you two,” Dan said before allowing Clarissa to whisk him away.

Once they were finally both gone, Nathan and I both let out small sighs of relief. I turned toward him and shook my head. “That man—”

“Just… be careful what you say around him,” Nathan said quietly so that only I could hear. “He’s a powerful Alpha, Olivia. I may be the one with the seat on the association, but you, as my Luna, hold a lot of power yourself. Use it wisely.”

Nathan’s words struck me to my core. I glanced over my shoulder at Dan, who was now swaying to the music on the dance floor with his wife. I knew that Nathan was right; that conversations with those two, even Clarissa, required a certain level of tact.

But when would it ever be enough?

Suddenly, though, Nathan pulled me out of my reverie with a nudge in my ribs and a chuckle. “Hey, check this out,” he said, slipping his phone out of his pocket. “The articles from the press conference started flooding in. I thought you might want to see this.”

I furrowed my brow as Nathan tapped at his phone. My curiosity then turned into utter shock when he turned the screen toward me and I saw the picture of me and Clarissa, taken before the press conference while we were chatting.

The headline read: “Like Mother, Like Daughter”.

My eyes widened as I slowly looked back up at Nathan. “Oh my…”

“I know,” he said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “I’ve already contacted the journal to have the record set straight, but still. Although…” His gaze drifted past me, back toward where Dan and Clarissa were dancing. “You two do share a striking resemblance.”

I followed his gaze. Clarrisa’s honey-golden hair, with its single gray streak, fell over her shoulders as she looked up at her husband. Her hazel eyes caught the sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows, and in that moment…

In that moment, I saw the face of a woman who I hadn’t seen for many years.

But no. My mother was dead.