My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 2

My Cheating Mate

Emma pov

My hands shook as I pulled out my phone, but my resolve didn’t waver. If Jeremy thought he could use me and discard me on his timeline, he had another thing coming.

I crept back down the hallway, my wolf lending me the stealth I needed. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to hide, to protect myself from more pain. But I forced myself forward. I needed proof. Needed insurance.

The door was still cracked open, their sounds of pleasure echoing obscenely through the quiet hallway. My stomach churned, but I steadied my phone and pressed record.

The video quality was perfect. Crystal clear footage of Jeremy’s face contorted in ecstasy as he thrust into Vanessa. Her voice, breathy and triumphant: “God, you feel so much better than you do with her, don’t you?”

“So much better, baby. You know exactly what I need.”

I kept recording. Thirty seconds. A minute. Long enough that there could be no doubt, no excuses, no gaslighting about what I’d seen.

“When are you going to mark me instead?” Vanessa asked, trailing her fingers down his chest. “Your real mate?”

“Soon as I can figure out how to break her father’s influence with the pack. Beta Marcus thinks the sun rises and sets on his precious daughter.”

My father. God, my father was going to be devastated. But he’d also be the first one to demand justice once he saw this.

I stopped recording and sent the video to three places: my personal email, Aria’s phone with a message to not open it unless something happened to me, and a hidden folder in my cloud storage. Then I deleted it from my phone’s camera roll. If Jeremy got suspicious and checked my phone, he wouldn’t find anything.

Only then did I run.

I made it to the pack house entrance before the tears started again, blurring my vision as I stumbled toward the parking lot. My little sedan looked like salvation. I practically threw myself inside, locking the doors before the sobs took over completely.

Five minutes. I gave myself five minutes to fall apart.

Then I started the engine and drove home to the small house Jeremy and I shared on the edge of pack territory. A “starter home,” he’d called it, though now I wondered if he’d always planned for it to be temporary. Maybe he’d already picked out the mansion where he’d live with Vanessa after I was discarded.

The house was empty when I arrived, thank God. Jeremy wouldn’t be home for hours—probably not until after he’d thoroughly satisfied himself with his “best friend.”

I moved through the rooms like a ghost, trying to figure out what to take, what mattered. Everything here felt contaminated now, tainted by his lies. But I forced myself to be practical.

Clothes. I pulled out a large duffel bag and started stuffing it with essentials. Jeans, shirts, underwear, my favorite sweater that had belonged to my grandmother. I left behind anything Jeremy had bought me. I didn’t want his gifts, his claims on me.

Documents. My birth certificate, passport, the title to my car that was solely in my name—thank the Moon Goddess I’d insisted on that. My college transcripts. The small amount of jewelry my mother had left me when she died.

Money. I’d been saving for years in a separate account Jeremy didn’t know about, money from the part-time job I’d kept despite his protests that “his mate didn’t need to work.” I’d always told myself it was for emergencies.

This definitely qualified.

I grabbed my laptop, my phone charger, and the framed photo of my parents from my nightstand. Everything else could burn for all I cared.

The hardest part was my wolf. She was howling in my head, a constant keen of pain that made my hands shake and my chest ache. The mate bond was screaming at us to stay, to wait for him, to try to fix this somehow.

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