Page 8 of The Gamma's Second Chance

She sighs and rubs my shoulder, squeezing it. “I know you can’t. And… I don’t resent you for that. I love Haven. She is an amazing friend and a wonderful luna, and she deserves someone like you to protect her.” She licks her lips and takes a deep breath before she continues. “But you deserve someone who isn’t constantly feeling like you’re always choosing your luna over them. And I deserve to not feel like an afterthought all the time.”

Her honesty hits me right in the gut, and I close my eyes, thinking back over the years we were together and even the times when she was here visiting after we weren’t together. And I realize how right she is. How I never saw what I was doing to her when I would rush off to do my gamma duties and leave her behind. How I never realized how much I hurt her.

Until now. Until it was too late.

But I wouldn’t change any of it. Or take any of it back. And I’m not sure what that says about me or how I should feel about that.

I step back from her, and her hand hangs suspended in mid-air before returning to her side. “I’m sorry.” It’s the only thing I can think of to say, even though it doesn’t cover or fix the years of pain I caused her. But it’s better than nothing.

I suppose.

“I know. I am too. But Nolan… we were together for years…years… and other than when we discussed it when we first got together, you never asked me to be your chosen mate, never offered to mark me, until right now. Why is that?”

I blow out a breath and shake my head as she hits me with more brutal honesty, making me reflect on things I don’t want to reflect on. “I… I don’t know.”

“I don’t think you actually want me as your chosen mate. You’re just trying to hold on to what is comfortable for you.”

“What’s wrong with comfortable?”

“Love shouldn’t just be what’s comfortable. We both deserve more than settling for each other.”

I open my mouth but then snap it shut and rip my eyes away from her, staring out over the open living room to my left, my eyes snagging on a patch of dust on my baby grand piano. My jaw ticks, and my eyes itch as my heart squeezes and my lip threatens to tremble.

She’s right. She’s right about all of it. But somehow this rejection feels worse than when she left me the first time. Maybe because that rejection never felt real, since we still continued to sleep together, even though we were no longer a couple.

I scrub my hand over my face, dragging it down slowly and stroking my jaw as I compose myself, taking deep breaths and counting to ten, clenching the ring box in my fist, using the pain to ground me and to keep the panic from tugging me under. I cando this. I can let her go. This rejection has nothing to do with me as a male and everything to do with her insecurities. It isn’t the same as her choosing an alpha over me. She’s not even choosing anyone over me. If anything, she’s choosing herself, which is fair.

Because she’s right. She deserves someone to worship the ground she walks on. Someone who treats her like a mate, not an afterthought. Someone who treats her like Wes treats Haven and Reid treats Taryn, or how her first mate treated her before he died.

And I don’t know if I can be that mate for her. I don’t know if I can be that mate for anyone.

“Before you leave to take Rachel to the airport, Haven and I need to talk to you about something in my office,”Wesley mindlinks me, interrupting my thoughts and my breathing exercise.

“I’ll be right there,”I reply without hesitation. Then I wince, realizing I did exactly what Rachel said I always do.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Of course,” she says, giving me a halfhearted smile.

I hold the ring box out to her as I walk closer to the door. “You can keep this. I bought it for you, and I want you to have it.” She says nothing as she takes it from me and moves out of the way. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

I leave my house, shutting the door behind me before she can reply or say goodbye, and speed walk across the grounds towards the large log cabin packhouse at the center, right by the crescent moon shaped lake our pack is named for. I pay little attention to my surroundings or the pack members who wave at me or are out enjoying the spring weather. My eyes stay forward the entire way to the packhouse and Wesley’s office.

I enter his office without knocking and then immediately turn around to leave when I realize Wesley and Haven aren’t alone.“Shit, I’m sorry. You said you needed to speak with me, so I assumed you weren’t busy. I’ll wait in the hall until—”

“It’s fine,” Wesley says, and he, Haven, and the female guest seated across the desk from them get to their feet. “That’s actually why I asked you to join us. Nolan, you remember Cassandra?”

My eyes flick over to the green-eyed female dressed in blue, who stands with her hand held out for me to shake, a wide grin on her face showing off her perfectly straight white teeth. I search my memory, trying to place her, but I come up empty. “Um…” I shut the door and step towards her, taking her hand. “I don’t, actually.”

“We met on Selene’s island in Greece?” she says, her head tilting to the side, her brows raised, that bright smile still lighting up her face with its unfettered happiness.

I grimace and shake my head as I drop her hand. “Sorry.”

Her smile doesn’t falter, though. She just shrugs and waves me off with a laugh that reminds me of the tinkling of piano keys. Sweet, light, and happy. The sound bounces around the room and echoes in my ears, and I tense from the pure joy of it, so opposite to the heavy sorrow, guilt, and self-loathing I carry within me.

“It’s fine,” she says. “You were in Greece for not even a full twenty-four hours, and you were rather preoccupied with finding answers about Haven’s past while you were there.”

She continues to smile the entire time she speaks, and I glance at Wes and arch a brow.

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