Bad Love: An Alpha's Regret (Leah and Aaron) novel Chapter 166

Chapter 166
We arrive back in Montana later that night and I’m exhausted.
But I’m glad for it, because hopefully it’ll mean I’ll fall straight into an exhausted sleep without dreams or grief disturbing me.
There’s extra SUVs in the driveway, but I don’t immediately think anything of it.
Not until I walk into the foyer and come face to face with Aaron.
We both freeze at the sight of each other.
My entire body lights up and my inner wolf is ecstatic.
This feeling, it’s like I was living in some kind of half-light, and Aaron brough the sun, warming me and making everything bright
and sharp.
Tension crackles in the air between us and Aaron’s eyes immediately glow golden.
Next thing I know, every single other wolf-including James-has fled, leaving us standing alone.
In that second, I make a snap decision, though I’m sure it’s mostly my wolf, the way she’s pushing up and clamoring to get closer
to him.
“I need to tell you something,” I blurt out into the heavy silence.
“I heard you were in California. They didn’t expect you back tonight, Aaron replies, not answering my statement. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have come. I just needed a few things from my office and my bedroom.”
“Please, it’ll only take a minute,” I say, wincing at the needy note in my voice.
What happened to my stubborn independence?
Aaron inclines his head stiffly and we walk to his office, keeping an impersonal amount of distance between us.
It’s good, I think
I don’t trust myself, or what my wolf will push me to do if we get closer.
“What do you need?” Aaron asks as soon as we’re inside. He crosses his arms, closing himself off from me.
I used to think he was cold toward me, but now I know I was wrong.
The way he’s treating me now is positively arctic.
“I need to tell you something,” I say, still not sure I’m doing the right thing, but pushing ahead anyway.
I don’t have anywhere else to turn to for help.
“About things that were going on with Roberts Corp and Liam before he died.”
At the mention of my brother’s name, Aaron’s features transform with utter fury.
He looks like he could happily dig up my brother’s remains and slaughter him all over again.
“What about him?” Aaron bites out.
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“The whole thing about my father and brother wasting their money on booze and gambling and living a degenerate lifestyle? It was just a cover for where the money was really going.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron asks, his brow creasing, and I can see I’ve got his attention.
“All of that money was being poured into a single, secret project on a restricted floor of the Roberts Corp building”
Now Aaron just looks confused. “Leah, are you sure? I ran Roberts Corp for months while you were-” He breaks off, his features hardening, as if he’s gathering his resolve. “I ran your family business for months and I never even saw a hint of any secret project or restricted floor.”
“Because it was a secret, Aaron,” I reply impatiently. “But now we have a problem.”
“We?” he repeats imperiously. “Your secret project has a problem and suddenly it’s we?”
I clamp down on the urge to bite back at him.
This is bigger than both of us.
We need to put our animosity and hurt feelings aside, or the results could be catastrophic.
“The project was a military contract developing Al weapons systems. It was worth billions. And the night Liam betrayed me, it was almost finished.”
Aaron stares at me, incredulous. “Billions?”
I glare at him bitterly, not surprised that’s the detail he’s focused on, since he had thought he’d brought my father and Pack Roberts to the financial brink by buying up shares and land before tricking me into leading my father into financial ruin and whi te
collar business crime.
“Yes, Aaron, pack Roberts was set to make a huge financial windfall, despite your best efforts to ruin them. But that’s not the point. The Al weapons system is dangerous. And when I went to California to find out what had been happening for the last six months since neither Liam nor I were there to oversee it, I found the entire floor cleaned out with no clue to where all the equipment and people working on the project went. I tried to call the head engineer, but his phone service has been cut off.”
Aaron stares at me for a long minute, his features gradually hardening.
“This is bad, Leah.”
“I know!” I reply, throwing my hands up. “That’s why I’m telling you. Because you still own fifty-one percent shares, so technically you’re on the hook if somehow, the tech has fallen into the wrong hands and is going to be used against the military we were supposed to hand it over to.”
Aaron curses harshly, then steps sideways, picks up a chair and throws it with a roar into the nearest wall, making it splinter into a million pieces. I step back at the display of masculine fury, my heart racing.
He’s never been this out of control before.
He’s always prided himself on keeping his emotions locked down.
What the he ll is going on with him?
“Do you know what this could do to us?” he demands, fists clenched, eyes glowing. “To our reputations? To our businesses? To our lives? This could ruin us, Leah. Ruin absolutely everything we’ve built. How could you keep this from me?”
He laughs, then, bitterly.
“Oh, but I shouldn’t be surprised, should I? After all, you didn’t even think it necessary to tell me about my own son.”