My Cheating Mate (Emma and Jeremy) novel Chapter 201

Chapter 201

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“Courtney caftie here,” Grace continued. “About thirty minutes ago. Showed up yelling about how I was stealing her boyfriend with my convenient mate bond.”

“She what?” Horror washed over me. “Grace, I didn’t I didn’t send her here

“I know you didn’t. But Connor, your girlfriend She paused. “Is Courtney your girlfriend? Are you still together?”

“I–I don’t know. Maybe? We never officially broke up.” The answer sounded pathetic even to me.

“Then yes, your girlfriend showed up at my house, uninvited, to tell me I was using the mate bond as a weapon. That I don’t actually want you, I just want to prove integration works for mate bonds too.”

The words sounded exactly like things Courtney had said to me over dinner. Things I’d half–believed because they played into

my fears.

“She’s wrong,” I said. “You’re not–you wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know?” Grace looked at me directly. “Connor, you said it yourself. You don’t know me. You’ve spent six months with Courtney building a relationship. You’ve spent zero time with me. How do you know what I would or wouldn’t do?”

She had a point. A devastatingly accurate point.

“I don’t,” I admitted. “I don’t know you. Don’t know what you’re interested in besides art. Don’t know what you care about or what makes you laugh or what you want out of life. I’ve known you for eighteen years and I don’t actually know you at all.”

“No. You don’t.” She pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Connor, you have three and a half hours left. Do you want to spend them getting to know me? Or do you want to spend them deciding between me and Courtney?”

The question was clear. Direct. Very Grace, I was realizing–no games, no manipulation, just honest communication.

“I want- I looked at her. Really looked at her. “I want to know you. Actually know you. Not the version Courtney describes or the surface things I’ve observed from a distance. The real you.

“Why?”

“Because you’re my mate. Because the Moon Goddess chose you for a reason. Because I’ve spent nineteen hours making terrible choices and I want-” I stopped. “I want to see if I can make a better one. If I can be someone worthy of the bond.”

“That’s a start.” She shifted slightly on the bench. “Okay. Three and a half hours. Ask me anything.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

I thought about what I actually wanted to know. Not the easy questions or the ones designed to confirm what I already believed. Real questions. Important ones.

“Why art?” I asked. “Why is painting so important to you?”

She smiled–the first real smile I’d seen from her since this morning. “Because it’s the only language I’ve found that actually expresses what I see. Words are limited. But color and shape and composition–they can show things that words can’t touch.”

“Like what?”

JE

“Like the way Uncle Cas looks at my brother Nate when he thinks no one’s watching. Like he’s seeing his own lost daughter in a twelve–year–old boy who asks questions about dinosaurs. There’s no word for that expression. But I can paint it.” She paused.” Like the way my mother looks at my father sometimes–love and remembered hurt and choice all mixed together. That’s not one emotion. It’s dozens. But I can show it.”

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