Chapter 145

Charles let out a huge sigh and removed his hands from mine, rubbing his face with them. “You’re still struggling to get the whole picture, Elena. That sort of alpha wife is not just my mother’s ideal. It’s the way things are done in an alpha household. It doesn’t matter if it’s mine or someone else’s.”

He grimaced. “People conform to fit within the social expectations of their station all the time. Do you think any of the governors who got elected in any of the cities were simply born with the appropriate social graces? They are in the highest office underneath the alpha king and side by side with the alphas.”

He answered for me. “No. They had to learn their role. They had to become that person. I’m not asking you to give up who you are. I’m asking you to grow who you are into someone who can function in that role.”

“Then that’s a no? You won’t tell your mom that I can’t be that woman?” My lips quivered, and I looked at him, begging him with my eyes to tell me that this wasn’t true. I needed him to say that he was going to fight for me. Theo said that Charles would let me be me the way that I wanted to.

Charles bit his lip and glanced around. The cafe was empty aside from him, me, and our guards. He let out a low growl and leaned toward me.

“Have you ever considered that maybe you’re being a little bit selfish, Elena?”

I drew back as if he’d slapped me. “Excuse me? I mean, selfish? We’re talking about my body and life. You’re telling me I need to give up my career and use my everything to give you children.”

Charles scowled at me. “You’re sitting here professing our love for one another, then throw this at me? I’ve told you how things work for alphas, and you don’t love me enough to even try accommodating that lifestyle. You want me to alienate my family and turn my back on countless generations of tradition just so that you can have a career, one that you could probably balance from home.”

“I’m so sorry you think I’m so inflexible.” I threw sarcasm at him.

Tears stung the backs of my eyes. I stood up abruptly before I started to cry, and made a scene in the restaurant, and said the first thing that came to mind.

“Then I guess I’m not the woman that you need.” And I turned my back on Charles and stalked out of the restaurant.

“Elena. Elena, wait!” he called after me, but I just kept marching.

He’d have to chase me down because I wasn’t bawling in the middle of a busy café. Pounding footsteps on the pavement sent a wave of relief through me. Charles had come after me. I knew he would.

I just had to be firm with him. He was angry, so he was lashing out. He didn’t mean those things that he said. I wasn’t being selfish. I was simply trying to be me.

Someone caught my arm, and I spun around, ready to forgive Charles. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with Theo.

“You can’t run off like that,” he admonished.

“Oh.” I turned and kept walking without finishing that thought out loud. I didn’t want to let Theo know the depth of my disappointment.

He tagged after me. “You’re seriously going to leave things like that?”

“Can you believe Charles called me selfish?” I snapped out. “He knows where to find me if he wants to apologize. The next time he calls, I’ll answer the phone, and he can say the words ‘I’m sorry,’ and then it will all be over.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” Theo asked.

I continued to storm away from the café, back toward the parking garage where Theo had left the car. I didn’t answer his question. I couldn’t imagine a world in which Charles wouldn’t call and apologize. I couldn’t imagine a world in which I no longer had him.

Somehow, our time together had become everything in my life. And I was positive he felt the same way.

But a week later, he still hadn’t called.

I spent most of my time holed up in the single bedroom working on various stories, trying to keep my mind off of waiting for Charles’ phone call.

By the time the second week passed, misery had completely overtaken me. He wasn’t calling. He wasn’t sorry, and I really wasn’t the right woman for him.

Charles was now seeing that as well as I had. I just wish I had recognized sooner that our relationship was doomed to failure because then maybe I wouldn’t have held on to hope so long. Maybe then I wouldn’t hurt so bad now.

Violet came over twice more during those two weeks, and then I didn’t see her anymore. I’d asked Theo about her once, and he just grunted.

By the end of the third week, I’d had enough. Fall was making going outside more difficult. The winds and rain and the cold temperatures were making being outside unpleasant for the most part, and I couldn’t continue to spend my time stuck indoors either at the office or at the apartment with Theo. I was making both of us miserable trying to do that.

So, I went backward, returning to one of my original plans. I was going to search for a way to get on to the dark web.

During my interviews for the best places to go in the city, I think I had run across the perfect connection. Jasmine was a young woman about two years younger than me, unattached and cheerful. I liked her the moment I interviewed her.

Another thing that drew me to her was that, like her name, Jasmine, she smelled just like the flower. She’d also gushed about my scent, and somehow, I knew that made us kindred spirits.

I looked up her phone number and gave her a call.

“Hello?” Jasmine answered when the phone rang.

“Hello, Jasmine. This is Elena Laurentia. We spoke previously.”

“Oh! Elena. How are you? Did you need another interview?”

“Actually, I have something that I hope you don’t think is weird to ask you.”

She giggled. “By all means, go ahead.”

“I was wondering if you’d like to meet me for lunch, a purely social meeting. As I mentioned before we got into your interview, I’m new in Packaven, or relatively new, and I don’t have a lot of friends in the area.”

“I’d be happy to have lunch with you,” she said.

We arranged our lunch date for the next day, and for the first time in weeks, I actually felt anticipation for the coming day. For so many days, I’d hated the idea of even waking up because all that lay on the other side was loneliness and misery, missing Charles and knowing that he was better off without me.

I had decided early on that I wouldn’t cost him his family or his position as an alpha. And so if this was what he needed to be happy, then like Theo said, I needed to cut Charles loose since he was the most important thing to me. That was the only way that I could show him how much I cared.

But now I had a lunch date to look forward to. And since Jasmine was single, there would be no awkwardness trying to work around her boyfriend. I insisted that Theo sit across the restaurant from us under the guise of needing girl talk. I played on his sympathy for my situation, and he agreed so long as he could keep an eye on me.

Jasmin sat at a table for two in the far corner of the restaurant, looking like both friendship and opportunity. And I couldn’t wait to act on both.