Chapter 75
ACE’S POV
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I had to take another cold shower to calm myself down. “Liam had to come in at the perfect time,” I muttered under my breath as the cold water ran over me. It did little to kill the memory of the way she looked at me.
When I stepped out a few minutes later, Liam ran straight at me from the bed and jumped into my arms like I had been gone for years. I caught him easily. We talked about everything and nothing. I bathed him myself, letting him splash water everywhere, and we got dressed for breakfast.
We had breakfast with Alpha Marcus. The man barely spoke to me. He kept giving me cold looks across the table and clearing his throat every time my eyes lingered on Charlotte a second too long. He made his disapproval clear without saying a word.
After breakfast, Liam had to go on a small picnic with some of his friends he hadn’t seen in weeks. He didn’t want to go at first. He insisted on staying with me and his mum. It took both of us to convince him. I promised I wouldn’t leave without having dinner with him, and only then did he agree.
Charlotte and I headed back to the company to finish what I had left pending. I didn’t plan on coming back to London anytime soon. The main reason I came around before was because I had to see Charlotte at the hospital which always proved unsuccessful.
“Why don’t you take me around your city?” I asked Charlotte when we were finally alone in the office.
She gave me a questionable look. “I’m sure you’ve been here many times. You know everywhere you need to know.”
“I only come here for business.” I stepped closer, taking her smaller hands in mine. “I want to know your places. The ones that mean something to you. I want to know you better.” She didn’t pull her hand away.
We got into the car and she drove us straight to her hospital. It was way bigger than the one she built in America. It was busy, people moving in and out nonstop. I watched her as she stared at the building, something soft and longing passing through her eyes.
When she didn’t move to get out, I glanced at her. “You’re not going in?”
She shook her head slowly. “If I step in there, I won’t come out until midnight.” I smiled a little, understanding what she
meant.
“Is that how you work? Always busy till midnight?” I asked, wanting to know everything about her. I wanted to know what her life had been like these past six years. Who she spent her time with. Who she trusted. If there had been someone else.
The thought of her having a boyfriend made my jaw tighten. She had every right to move on. I was the one who rejected and abandoned her. I wasn’t there to help her through her struggles, she freaking had an accident and I wasn’t there for her. But the idea of another man touching her, holding her, knowing her the way only I deserve to, it didn’t sit well with me. Jealousy crept in, causing me to breathe too fast.
“Always busy,” she replied. “Liam is the only reason I don’t sleep at the hospital every day.” A small smile touched her lips. “I love healing people. It doesn’t matter what they’re suffering from. Sometimes, the sickness is not natural. I would take days, weeks or even months before I found a cure. She looked ahead at the hospital building as she spoke. “Everyone thinks it’s easy,” she continued. “It’s not. Unnatural sicknesses are the hardest. Sometimes I hit a dead end and feel like giving up. And then… the Moon Goddess shows me the solution in a dream. When I’ve lost hope.”
I listened carefully, not missing a word. The way her eyes lit up when she talked about her patients. The way her voice changed when she mentioned the toughest case she ever handled. She wasn’t just doing a job. She was living her purpose. And I fell deeply in love with her. I reached for her hand without thinking. She stopped mid–sentence and looked at me,
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Chapter 75
brows slightly raised in questioning.
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“I love you,” I said before I could stop myself. “I’m head over heels in love with you and I don’t know how to stop. I don’t want to stop.” It felt like the Moon Goddess was standing right there, giving me a second chance to right my wrong.
“It’s not righting any wrong if you’re still hiding the truth,” my wolf said quietly in my head. “What was that you always said about honesty? I feel this is the right time to be honest with our mate. Tell her the truth.” I ignored him, even though the words hit deep.
Charlotte didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, but her eyes told me she felt the same way for me. Maybe not as much as I love her but she does love me too. I knew she had doubts, especially after Moon showed up at her office and planted those thoughts in her head. I was going to prove it to her, with everything I did from now on that she was the only one for me. The only woman my heart answered to.
She drove off. The drive was about an hour and thirty minutes long. The buildings of London slowly disappeared behind us, replaced by long quiet roads and open land. She didn’t say much during the drive but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable.
She finally turned onto a narrow road that led up a hill known as Box Hill. It was far from the busy parts of the city. No tourists came at this time of day. Just wind and open space. We stepped out of the car.
The view was wide below us. Rolling green hills, scattered trees, and a soft river cutting through the land in the distance. The sky looked endless, pale blue with slow moving clouds. It was the kind of place where you could hear your own breathing.
There was an old wooden bench under a large oak tree, slightly worn out. Charlotte walked ahead of me, she ran her fingers over the back of the bench before sitting down.
“This is my safe place,” she said softly. “I found this place one evening after a long shift at the hospital. I sat here for hours. It was the first time I felt calm.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I come here whenever my head is full and I need to think… or when the thought of who I was fills my head.” Her voice lowered. “I really wanted to know who I am.” She swallowed. “I still do.”
She looked ahead, but her eyes weren’t seeing the hills anymore. The wind brushed her hair across her face but she didn’t move it away. She just kept staring at the view. “I’ve had a few hard dreams of what my past looked like and honestly at this point I don’t think I want to know anymore.” Her fingers gripped the edge of the bench. “Everything I’ve seen about it is filled with pain, bullying, physical abuse and being helpless.” She drew in a sharp breath, steadying herself.
“The dream this morning, was it about your past?” I asked in a small voice, almost afraid of her answer. Her memories were coming back and it was all filled with pain. What happens when she remembers everything? The ache in her soft eyes made my chest tighten. I was part of that pain. If she remembers me clearly, she would surely discard and walk away from me forever.
She nodded slowly. “And this is the first time I saw a face clearly. Other times it used to be blurred faces or they were cut off. But this time…” Her fingers trembled slightly. “I saw one face clearly. I had two dreams last night and she was there in both of them.”
My heart began beating ten times faster.
“Who did you see?” I asked. She looked conflicted. Her lips parted, then closed again. She was fighting herself, deciding whether to tell me or not and she didn’t.
“It doesn’t matter, this is about me and it’s very messy. I need to figure it out myself.”
My heart sank at her words. She still didn’t trust me enough to let me in.
The questions that came after that were ones I couldn’t answer, not because I didn’t know, but because I was afraid. With every question she asked me, I realized the truth slowly sinking in. I wasn’t truly trustworthy. Every answer that left my
mouth was all lies.
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Chapter 75
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My wolf growled in my head, angrily. “You’re making things worse. You keep lying to our mate like this, and you’re pushing her farther away.”
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