Chapter 280
Dominic’s POV
I didn’t sleep at all that night Instead, I had laid in bed for most of the night, staring at the ceiling with my arms behind my head, going over everything I’d said in that alley until the words had worn grooves into my brain.
Now, in the light of the morning sun, the guilt hit like a sledgehammer to the chest.
The thing was, I had been so certain for so long that Ellie was the problem. That she was the one causing all of the upset in this marriage with her distance and the way that she seemed to keep turning to Lucas, and now Colt, whenever things went wrong.
Not me. Never me.
But now I wasn’t so sure.
I still felt that she had a hand in the downfall of our marriage. There was no denying that. But maybe I’d had one, too.
Most things took two hands to accomplish, anyway.
The truth was, the jealousy had been eating at me since the wedding, and I had been fool enough to let it. The result was that I had become suspicious and heavy-handed and had spent more time looking for evidence of something that might not even exist than actually trying to fix what was broken between us.
The phone. I kept coming back to the phone. I’d grabbed it out of her hand like she was a child I didn’t trust, and she hadn’t been doing anything wrong. She’d been talking to a friend. I had checked her call log after she stormed out of the lounge and she hadn’t been lying. She told me she was talking to a friend, and I hadn’t believed her, and in that moment I had been exactly the person she’d always accused me of being. Jealous, controlling, and selfish.
By the time the house started waking up around me, I’d made up my mind. I was going to apologize. Not a halfhearted “I’m sorry you felt that way” kind of apology, either, but a real one, for the phone, for the alley, for the way I’d unwittingly made her feel like she couldn’t trust me for months. For all of it.
I didn’t know if she would accept it. She probably wouldn’t, at least not right away, not after everything. But I was going to offer it anyway. Because it was the right thing to do. And it was a lot better for both of us than sitting here and letting things tester.
Ellie was still my wife. Even if she didn’t seem to want to be. And we needed to be a team.
I went down to the kitchen before anyone else was up and put together a tray. Coffee, toast, and some fresh fruit. It was what she usually ate in the morning; something simple and delicious. I hoped it would be enough to soften last night, even if only a little.
I picked up the tray and went upstairs, where I knocked on her door. There was no answer.
“Ellie?” I called out, knocking again. “Can we talk?”
Still no answer. I tried the handle, finding it unlocked, and pushed the door open just a few inches. “Ellie?” I poked my head into the room, fully prepared to have a pillow or something launched at me.
Surprisingly or perhaps not so surprisingly the room was empty. The bed was made, the bathroom and closet doors were hanging open, and Ellie’s boots that usually sat by her dresser were gone.
I straightened, still holding the tray, and sighed. She must have gone to the academy already. Probably in an effort to avoid me
I was just turning to take the tray back downstairs when I ran into Mara. She was holding a basket of linens, and her eyes widened a little when she saw me.
“Alpha.” She bowed her head and curtsied. Judging from the reddening of her cheeks, I got the sense that something was going
“Where’s Ellie?” I asked.
+30 Bonus
She looked up. I could see her throat bob. “She, um… Went out.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You were hired to keep an eye on her, Mara.”
“I know.” She took a breath. “I was just considering how to tell you. Here.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew something: a small, white envelope.
Mara handed it to me, and I took it with one hand while I set the tray down on the hallway table with the other. I opened the envelope and slid out its contents, which was just a single sheet of folded, lined paper.
Glancing up at her through my brows, I unfolded the paper and read it.
My heart stopped in my chest.
The note was short. It outlined a meeting, the clearing off the trail, noon, come alone, and most importantly….
Don’t tell Dominic.
The handwriting I recognized easily enough. I had seen Lucas’s handwriting enough times before to recognize the way his L’s always looped so dramatically.
I put the note down on the desk and exhaled slowly.
Mara was hovering. I looked at her. “That’ll be all,” I said, waving my hand.
She nodded and hurried away.
I sat there for a minute looking at the note.
Last night I had told myself I’d been nothing more than paranoid. Here I was thinking that I had let jealousy cloud my judgment, and that I needed to apologize.
And yet here was a note, in Lucas’s handwriting, inviting her to meet him alone in the forest at noon, telling her specifically not
to tell me.
The breakfast tray was still sitting there, going cold now, and I wished I hadn’t made it at all.
I’d been wrong to grab her phone and say the things I had. I knew that. But this… this was inexcusable. All of the evidence pointed to an affair, and I wasn’t about to keep sitting here and letting her convince me otherwise.
I checked the clock. It was ten past twelve. If they had met, they would probably still be out there.
I turned and immediately began making my way in that direction.
When I burst outside, the air was cold and scented with damp earth. The stormcloud that had been sitting on the horizon all morning had moved in, and it was starting to drizzle. Near the forest, the rain was thicker. I picked up my pace, jogging across the gardens and fields. By the time I reached the treeline, my shirt was wet and my hair was starting to plaster to my forehead, and I didn’t even care.
All that mattered was catching them in the act. Finally, irreparably, finding real evidence for my suspicions.
I didn’t know what I would do once that happened, but right now, that didn’t even matter. I could cross that bridge when I came to it. And right now, I saw the bridge hovering just in the distance.
I made it to the treeline. The forest was dark and wet, forcing me to squint into the dim light. Up ahead, on the path, I saw
movement.
Fury filled my chest. I cupped my hands around my mouth and started to shout. But whatever I had been about to say suddenly died in my throat when the figures moved closer.
Lucas was carrying Ellie in his arms. She was soaking wet and covered in mud, and her eyes were red from crying.
2/3
+30 Bonus
