Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Jaxon

Eight weeks have flown by in the blink of an eye. I can’t believe how much my son has grown in that short period of time. I also can’t believe how much I’ve already missed. Every day he’s doing something new. Something he wasn’t doing when I left the day before. And it guts me that I’m not there to see it.

When Skye walked away from me at the same moment I realized I couldn’t live without her, I thought that was the worst thing I’d ever have to face. I was wrong. Because as much as I loved her, still love her, it’s nothing compared to the profound loss I feel every time I have to kiss Benji goodbye.

He’s developed his own little personality, full of coos and cries that mean something. He’s even starting to smile. And he has, as I discovered two days ago and have not yet finished processing, a strong preference for Nicolai Woolf’s baritone.

I was holding him while he cried. Doing everything I’ve learned in eight weeks of nearly daily visits-the right angle, the right rhythm, the slight bounce that usually settles him. He was fussing with the particular low-grade dissatisfaction that means something is not right and I can’t fully articulate what. Nothing I did was right.

Then Nicolai walked through the room. He didn’t talk to Benji, not directly. Just crossed from the hallway to his office, saying something to Dimitri about a meeting.

Benji’s head turned toward his voice, seeking him out. Just like that. A smooth, deliberate rotation toward the sound, with the focused attention of someone who has recognized something important. Then he quieted.

Thirty minutes of inconsolable fussing and then-quiet. Because Nicolai Woolf said something to his Beta about a meeting.

“He knows your voice,” I said, softly because I was holding my son, when what I wanted to do roar in frustration.

It was the only thing I could think of to say. I needed to say it to someone. Nicolai paused in the doorway. Looked at Benji, who was now contentedly examining the middle distance. Then at me.

“He’s heard it every day since before he was born,” he replied matter-of-factly. Not unkind. Not a claim, not a victory. Just true.

Then he went to his meeting and I stood in the living room of his estate holding my son, who had stopped fussing the moment another man’s voice entered the room. I hate it.

One thing I haven’t missed during my visits is the shape of this arrangement my ex-wife has with Alpha Woolf. And I hate it almost as much.

Skye doesn’t bother pretending to be someone she’s not for my visits. She’s too tired and too honest-running on too much responsibility and too little sleep, she has no bandwidth for performance. What I see when I arrive is just who she is. The life she’s built here, the way she and Nicolai work together, an entire household that’s rearranged itself around a baby.

I see Nicolai when I go into the house. See him as I leave-through the window sometimes, when I’ve forgotten something and turn back. He’s always there. In a way that isn’t hovering-it’s just presence.

Jaxon visits. Nicolai stays.That’s just the state of affairs. And my son doesn’t know that any of this is unusual.

Benji moves between us with the ease of someone who doesn’t understand yet that anything about this arrangement is complicated. To him, right now, the world is just the people in it.

He responds to my face and my voice and the way I hold him. But he prefers Nicolai’s baritone. And, all I can think

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is that I need to find a way to fix this before my son decides he doesn’t need me at all.

s these thoughts that are consuming me when Noah calls to check in one afternoon while I’m driving back to Ironwood after a few days away.

“How’s it going,” he says, which means I want to know where your head is before you do something I need to talk

you out of.

“He knows Nicolai’s voice,” I spit out, knowing my best friend doesn’t need me to dress it up for him.

“Okay.” He says in that drawn out way that means of course he does, you idiot.

The rest of it.

The mate bond I still feel like an invisible thread, pulling me to her. The burning desire I feel every time I notice the way she looks-tired and luminous and completely unreachable. The jealousy that eats at me from the inside out when Nicolai holds my son as I leave and I know he’ll be a part of everything I miss.

Let the rest of it go. I don’t know if I can. But I know he’s right.

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Somehow, I need to find the compromise between letting it go and letting it ruin everything.

Cara Anderson

Author

Thank you for reading!

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