Ex-Mate Wants Me Back (Seraphina and Mortimer) novel Chapter 37

Chapter 37

Seraphina’s POV

Mortimer flicked a look at the flowers, his voice dropping into a testing, low hum. “Not your style?”

I shook my head. “They’re beautiful. Thanks.”

My voice was light-clinical. I was being as polite as I would be to a stranger in a business meeting.

That level of professional courtesy put a goddamn canyon between us.

I saw him stiffen. Through the dying spark of our bond, I caught his shock. He’d expected me to light up, to be the star-struck girl I used to be. He’d read the room completely wrong.

Then, he slid a small, expensive-looking box across the table.

“Open it.”

I did what I was told. Inside was a sapphire that looked like a piece of the deep ocean had been frozen and cut into a perfect stone.

I’d seen the raw gem in an auction magazine on the flight back-it was an eight-figure rock, easy. (1)

Mortimer never held back when it came to throwing money at a problem.’

I clicked the lid shut and pushed it back toward him. “It’s too much. Keep it.”

Mortimer’s brow hit a hard knot. The warm air in the booth turned sub-zero in a heartbeat.

“You’re my mate. My Luna. Buying you things is part of the deal, isn’t it?”

I could hear the friction in his voice.

He wasn’t wrong-on paper, we were still mated.

But the ‘Luna’ title had been a hollow joke for three years. Taking a gift this heavy now felt wrong. I didn’t have the stomach for it, and I didn’t want the strings attached.

I didn’t reach for the box.

As I started to pull my hand back, Mortimer’s fingers clamped around my wrist.

His eyes were like twin lasers locked onto my left ring finger. His voice went dangerously low. “Where’s your wedding ring?”

I blinked, my gaze following his down to my bare hand.

Truth was, I’d taken it off the second I got back from Alaska. While I was scrubbing up that first night, it just felt… heavy.

So I left it off. I tossed out a half-assed excuse. “I’m a doctor. I can’t wear jewelry in the OR. I took it off.”

He knew that was standard procedure.

But the atmosphere in the room bottomed out. I could feel his Alpha possessiveness redlining, vibrating just under the surface.

He knew the old me–the girl who, even in surgery, would tuck that ring into a safe spot and slide it back on the second the last stitch was sewn.

I never left that finger empty. Not until now.

“You aren’t in surgery now,” he snapped, his voice stiff.

The fact that he was obsessing over this trivial crap was starting to grate on me. I frowned. “Taking it off and putting it back on is a pain. I didn’t want to lose it, so I left it in the bedroom drawer.”

Chapter

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Mortimer looked like he’d been punched in the gut. He actually hitched a breath.

His eyes stayed glued to my face, searching for a sign that I was joking. I wasn’t. “You never used to complain about the ‘trouble,’ “he rasped.

I didn’t get why he was digging in on this. The irritation in my chest was turning into a dull roar. “Well, people change. It’s a hassle now. Is that a problem?”

The bluntness of it caught him off guard. He looked stunned.

I couldn’t blame him-in three years, I’d never spoken to him without a layer of soft devotion in my voice.

I’d never looked at him with anything but a smile. Now, I looked at him like he was a chore I was trying to finish.

A sharp, needle-like pain pricked deep in my chest.

It felt like a gear had snapped in our connection, and every time the machine tried to turn, it just ground metal on metal.

But that pain was nothing compared to what I’d felt that night under the snow.

Mortimer’s jaw was a hard, white line.

He looked like he was about to flip the table and storm out, but somehow, he choked the rage back down.

“Fine,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and muffled. “If it’s a hassle, don’t wear it.”

The aggressive pine scent in the air faded, replaced by something damp and heavy.

Something that felt almost like… desperation.

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