Ex-Mate Wants Me Back (Seraphina and Mortimer) novel Chapter 131

Chapter 131

Third Person’s POV

Seraphina assumed he was just losing his patience. She took a deep breath, offering a calm, practiced apology. “Sorry. I had to handle some things at home. I didn’t mean to waste your time.”

“Handle some things?” Mortimer thought, his blood starting to simmer. “Or were you busy saying goodbye to that low-life mutt?”

The more he thought about it, the more his vision blurred with rage. He was the CEO of the Craig Group, the Alpha of the Blades –and he was sitting in a car like a hired driver, waiting for his mate to finish coddling another man?

Where was he losing? Was it because the other guy knew how to beg? Or was it because she was the one supporting him?

“Seraphina, as my mate, you just kept your Alpha waiting for fifteen minutes.”

His voice was cold, but there was a streak of wounded ego underneath that he hadn’t even noticed. “Is there something in your logic that ranks higher than a formal gathering of the Alpha families?”

Seraphina had zero clue he was competing with a dog again.

Seeing the lethal aura around him thickening, her expression went flat. “I told you not to come, Mortimer. You’re the one insisting on this fake performance of ‘decency’.”

The words he was about to bark out got stuck in his throat. He looked at her eyes-clear as ice, steady as a mountain-and felt his jaw ache from clenching it so hard. He let out a sharp, bitter huff and shoved the passenger door open from the inside.

Seraphina climbed in, thinking that if he was going to be this miserable over a few minutes, he shouldn’t have bothered.

No one forced him to play chauffeur.

Mortimer watched her settle into the seat with that “business as usual” attitude. His chest felt tight.

So that was it? He’d lost the right to even be moody?

He hadn’t even stormed into her apartment to reclaim his territory, yet she was already acting like he was an annoyance.

He pouted–his dark red eyes actually flickering with a hint of hurt-as he stared her down. “You think I’m overstepping? Is that it?”

“I just think you value your time too much to waste it here,” Seraphina replied, her tone almost pleasant. “Given that look on your face, you’re clearly pissed.”

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Mortimer nearly choked on his own resentment.

He leaned over the steering wheel, his voice dropping into a low, desperate growl-the sound of a trapped predator. “Seraphina, use your brain! Do you honestly think I’m this angry over a few minutes of waiting?”

Inside his head, Barton was pacing in circles, frantic and territorial. His pine-scented pheromones were leaking into the cabin, heavy and sour with a violent edge of jealousy.

Seraphina looked at him, genuinely lost. She couldn’t find the logic in his fury.

Mortimer felt his heart actually ache. He decided to just burn it all down. He gritted his teeth and snapped, “I just can’t stand how well you treat that goddamn dog at home. Happy now?”

The second the words left his mouth, a wave of pure, unadulterated failure washed over him.

How pathetic had he become?

Hearing him go after Dash again, Seraphina didn’t just feel annoyed-she looked at him like he was a medical anomaly she

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needed to study.

“Are we going?” she asked quietly. “Because if not, I’m going back inside.”

Mortimer stared at her. She was so cold it was almost cruel. She wouldn’t even give him the dignity of a fight. To her, his emotional outbursts were just “irrational noise.”

“You won’t even argue with me anymore?” he barked, the corners of his eyes turning a frustrated red.

Seraphina tilted her head. “What’s there to argue about? Did you forget what you wrote in the Mating Agreement?”

She started reciting the clauses like a court stenographer, each word a ghost of a past wound. “Mates shall not cause unnecessary trouble for one another.’ ‘Disputes over trivial matters are strictly prohibited.’ Mortimer, you mated with me because you wanted a mate who was ‘low-maintenance.’ If I start biting back over every little thing, I’m not exactly following the contract, am I?”

She looked at the shifting colors of rage and confusion on his face and whispered to herself, “You’re a strange man. You got exactly what you wanted, and now you’re miserable.”

“The agreement! The contract!” he roared, his frustration slamming against his ribs. “Is that the only thing you see? Those goddamn pieces of paper?”

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