Page 56 of Cruel Alpha Bully

Fights you caused.

“Really? That’s unfortunate.” I keep my tone even as I take a sip of tea. No more coffee for me.

“Well, it’s just so obvious that you’re unhappy,” Jill says, reaching over and patting my arm.

Touch me again, and I’ll bite your hand off.

“Really?” I say, staring at her over the rim of my cup.

“Really,” she agrees. “You never wanted to marry Bae. I know that. You just came back for a short trip, and now look, you’re trapped here, away from your friends and the life you built for yourself.”

I keep the cup in front of my face so Jill can’t see me smiling. She, of all people, should know I’m currently living my wildest fantasy, a dream world where Bae and I can’t get enough of each other to the point we never want to get out of bed.

“Look, I can help,” she says eagerly. “I can help you leave town. Quietly, so no one will try to stop you. Then you can have your life back, and you’ll never have to see this dinky little town again.”

I wonder if she knows that’s exactly what the elders threatened me with. It doesn’t escape me for a second that Carson is her father and this might be what they had planned since the very beginning.

“Look, Jill—”

“No, Gina,” she says softly, her eyes pained. “You don’t understand. This mate ceremony thing—it screwed with a lot of us, okay? Not just you. I mean, me and Bae, we had something. Everyone was happy, even you. Then this had to happen.”

“What had to happen?”

Jill gives me a mournful look. “I can’t tell you, okay? It’s up to Bae if he wants to tell you everything. But if I help you get away, then everyone could have what they want.”

And what exactly do I want, Jill?

It’s funny she’s claiming to know what I want when I don’t.

But I do know one thing. I still want Bae, and I want this baby. Jill’s words have put a deep, cold fear into me, and I wonder if this is it—the bomb I’ve been so afraid of all this time.

Finding out Bae was with Jill.

But was he? Surely, he would have told me. I believe that completely.

Maybe it’s a big secret. So big, the entire pack is hiding it from me. They would have to, since the ceremony decreed I’m his true mate.

What if he already was with Jill, and everyone believes I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? The thought makes me shudder from my skin right down to my bones.

“Well, Gina, what do you say?” Jill asks. There is a barely shielded triumph shining in her eyes. I put my tea down and shake my head.

“No, Jill.”

“What?”

“I said no. I’m not leaving town, and if I was, I wouldn’t need your help to do it.”

“But, Bae… if you care about him, you have to—”

“I don’t have to do anything. I think we’re done here, Jill.”

“We’re not!” she hisses, getting up and slamming her chair against the table. “We are not done, Gina!”

Jill storms off, and I finish my tea. Her words have put enough fear in me that I’m reluctant to tell Bae I’m pregnant. I know he’s shown me recently how much he wants me, but a baby is another matter entirely.

It would bind us together permanently—out of duty, not love. I want to know that Bae chooses me with his whole heart. Because he wants to, not because he has to.

He rejected me once before because it was what everyone else wanted him to do. He could easily do it again.

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