Page 153 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

“Did this ‘other girl’ know you were pretending?”

“Yes. She wanted to help us. She and her brother wanted their father gone too.”

“Why?”

“He cheated on their mom. A lot. It basically killed her,” he hissed, his face a mixture of disgust, sorrow, and anger.

“That’s awful,” I murmured, and he nodded his agreement. “So you were pretending to be engaged?”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s why you didn’t call me back when I called you?”

“Yeah,” he repeated, quieter this time, glancing down at his feet. “I had to convince Timothy I was serious about his daughter. He could… he could smell you on me when I came to the meeting.”

I wrinkled my nose and furrowed my brow again. “Smell me? How—?”

“Werewolf? Remember?” he said, tapping his nose. “We have enhanced senses such as sight and smell.”

“Oh.”

“He didn’t want his daughter to be someone’s side piece. Ironic when you think about how he treated his own mate. My dad said I should wait until it was all done with before contacting you. I thought it would all be done by the end of the weekend.”

“But it wasn’t,” I finished for him.

“No. It wasn’t,” he admitted. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t ready for that. I still had questions, and I still needed answers about this whole fake engagement thing. I just stared at him, waiting for him to continue his story.

He waited, but when he realized I would not respond to that, he pressed on. “Timothy wouldn’t agree to give us what we needed until I agreed to schedule the mating ceremony with his daughter. So we scheduled it for Friday. Once we had what we needed, we sent it to the king so he could look over it and make his decision. We kept the ceremony set for Friday even when the king informed us he would be coming to arrest Timothy because we didn’t want to make him suspicious by backing out.”

“So you’re not married? Or mated or whatever?” I asked, looking down at my fingers.

“No!” he exclaimed, standing up straighter. “No, of course not. I never intended to be. I only agreed so we could get the information that we needed. And Nicole found her real mate while pretending to be at her bachelorette party.”

“But what if the king hadn’t convicted Timothy? Or what if he hadn’t gotten back to you in time? And what if Nicole hadn’t found her real mate? What would you have done?” I asked.

His face went white, and I could almost feel his heart skipping a beat and sticking in his throat. Of course, he hadn’t thought about that when he made his plan.

“Neither of us wanted it, Haven,” he breathed out. “I guess we would have gone through with it, pretended to be mated until everything was finished, and we could annul the union. But I wouldn’t have marked her. I would never have marked her as my mate.”

I didn’t understand what he meant by that, but I just nodded, still staring at my fingers. I could add that to my list of questions.

“Okay,” I muttered. “I can kind of understand what you were trying to do. Trying to help your pack and your dad and your king. I mean, I don’treallyget it, but I get it.”

He sighed, and I felt a brief twinge of relief from him. “I know. I know it’s a lot to take in and understand and you’ve sort of been thrown into it, and I’m sorry.”

He kept apologizing, which was good because it was what I wanted, but I wasn’t done. I wasn’t ready to forgive him. I still had more questions, more things I needed to address.

“So, if a mating ceremony is like a wedding, then a mate is like—like a husband or a wife?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” he replied. “There are different types of mates. Chosen mates and fated mates. A chosen mate means you pick each other and agree to be together, even though there isn’t a mate bond. Nicole and I were pretending to be chosen mates.”

“And a fated mate?”

“A fated mate is a soulmate. Your other half. Your perfect match. There is no one more important to a werewolf than their fated mate.”

He stared at me with the same intensity he had the night before, the way he had when he first entered the hospital room and when he’d held me after my panic attack. The words he left unspoken hung between us, daring one of us to acknowledge them. To say them out loud.

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