Page 23 of Coffee Shop Cupid
“You know what it means…” I whispered.
I whined as he ran his finger back and forth across the mark.
“I know,” he whispered. “And I still want to kiss you.”
“There’s more,” I admitted.
“Is it part of why you keep pushing me away?”
“Yes.”
“I’m listening.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath. “I’m a failure as an omega. I… I can’t have children. Ever.” I paused, then in a voice so low I could barely hear it myself, “They took my womb last year.”
“Is that why…?” he started, finger skimming the mark again to finish the question.
I nodded. “He demanded a divorce and a severed bond while I was still in the hospital. An omega he’d been cheating on me with was pregnant.”
He growled, low and angry. “He was a piece of shit.”
My eyes snapped open and I looked up at him, jaw slack. “What?”
Rage filled his eyes, but it wasn’t directed at me, instead it was on my behalf. “You’re a person, not a breeding machine. Mates are supposed to stick together, no matter what. He failed you, then blamed you.”
Joey and my other therapist before I’d moved had said the same thing, but I was paying them. To hear an alpha I barely knew say it…
It was like all the pressure was released at once, and all the stress and anguish that had built over years burst out of me. I started sobbing. I cried for my lost babies, lost love… and lost time.
Chase pulled me against him again, holding me tight, and for the first time in years I felt safe and protected.
He hadn’t walked away. He knew, and he’d stayed, even if it was only long enough to help me through my tears.
I lost track of time, sobbing in his arms. But it was the most cathartic cry I’d had in as long as I could remember—even over the tears I’d shed in the hospital.
Eventually my tears dried, and I had a headache from crying so hard for so long. I was exhausted and empty, but I felt like I could finally start to heal too.
Chase shifted me so that I was on his lap, and I leaned into it.
“No more running?” he murmured, nuzzling my hair.
I shook my head, and sighed. “No more running.”
Chapter 10 - Chase
Itried to work on the weekly bookkeeping, but my eyes drifted to my phone every few minutes. Tristan was at an appointment with his therapist, and he’d promised that he would call once it was over.
I’d held him on the park bench for nearly an hour the day before, giving him a safe space to cry out what had to be years of pain.
Holding him like that had been like a dream, even if we never got to kissing.
I’d wait. It was clear that he wasn’t ready, even if the attraction was there.
My instincts told me that if I was patient we’d be able to move onto a happy ending.
Was it the future I’d expected? No. I’d always thought I’d see my mate round and bearing my mark. But was it what I actually wanted, or what society thought I should have?
“Knock, knock,” a soft voice said from the door.
