Page 155 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

But it didn’t change what he did. It didn’t change how he’d ignored me. Lied to me.

I didn’t even care about the fake engagement thing. I could look past that and understand he was helping his people.

But ignoring me. Not communicating with me. Especially when he knew my biggest fear, my biggest insecurity.

It would have been so easy to fall into his arms and profess my love back to him. To let him hold me and love me and kiss away the pain of the previous days.

But he needed to know how much he’d hurt me. He needed to understand I wouldn’t let that slide. I needed to know for certain he wouldn’t do something like that again.

“While that was a wonderful speech,” I said, bracing myself, steeling myself to do what I didn’t want but needed to. I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and pulled his hands from my face. “It doesn’t change the fact that you ignored me.”

“I know,” he replied. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“You could have called me. Or found some way to contact me and explain,” I said. “I would have understood and stayed hidden and pretended with you. We could have been a team, but instead, you chose to ignore me and make me feel like I didn’t matter anymore. Like I was just a fling. Like you used me and tossed me aside.”

“I couldn’t, Haven.” He sighed.

“Yes, you could have.”

“No, I couldn’t! I literally couldn’t. My dad ordered me not to.”

“Oh, and you just do whatever Daddy says still? Even at twenty-four years old?”

“When it’s an alpha command, yeah, I have to follow it.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s an order that we have to follow. It’s literally impossible to not follow an alpha order. The only person who isn’t affected by one is an alpha’s mate,” he explained. “And, as I said before, Timothy smelled you on me. He asked me about you. He threatened you. Not outright, but the threat was there. I was protecting you. I couldn’t let him know how much you meant to me, or you could have gotten hurt.”

A dark chuckle escaped my lips without warning. “And yet, by you protecting me, I got hurt anyway,” I threw back at him.

He flinched, and his chin dropped to his chest, his hands pulling away from mine. “And I’ll never forgive myself for that,” he muttered. “As soon as I heard you were hurt, I realized how badly I’d fucked up. And I know there is nothing I can do to fix it or change it. I just hope that someday, you find you can forgive me.”

I felt guilty almost right away for throwing that in his face. I didn’t blame him for what Lennox did. It wasn’t anyone’s fault except for Lennox.

But in my pettiness, I wanted him to hurt, too. Even though he was already beating himself up for what happened to me.

I stared at him for a long moment, thinking about what I wanted to do next. I would forgive him, of course. If I was honest with myself, I had already forgiven him. But I was still going to make him work for it.

I narrowed my eyes at him and then tossed the covers aside, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and standing up.

“What are you doing?” Wesley asked, standing up and following me to the door.

“I’m going for a walk.”

“Why?”

“To think,” I answered, walking into the living room area.

Nolan sat on the couch with a mug of coffee in his hands, finally out of his wolf form, staring straight ahead pretending he hadn’t heard our entire argument.

“Go on a walk with me?” I asked him. He raised his brows, then set his mug down on the coffee table and stood up.

“Sure,” Nolan replied.

“Are you going to reject me?” Wesley murmured as he followed the two of us to the door.

“What?” I asked.

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