Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 188

Chapter 188

Jaxon

I happen to be passing by Nicolai’s office when I overhear Mikhail informing him about a security issue. A gap in the estate’s perimeter monitoring-a gap I’d already identified but assumed was being addressed so I said nothing. But seeing the look of concern on his face, I realize this is the first time he’s hearing of it.

“Woolf.” He looks up, surprised to see me standing there. “Your eastern boundary camera,” I say. “The rotation pattern. There’s a window.”

He looks at the report in his hand. “Where?”

“Between the twenty-minute rotation on the secondary camera and the motion sensor reset. Forty-three second gap, repeating on an interval.” I’ve seen it before-Ironwood had the same vulnerability in its system three years ago, before I had it addressed. “Your installer probably followed a standard template. Most do.”

Nicolai stares at me for a moment, debating with himself. “Come in,” he says eventually.

I come in. We stand over his desk and I show him what I’m seeing. He asks a direct question about the timing interval. I give him a direct answer about the fix. He asks about the installation requirements. I answer him. He asks whether the same vulnerability exists on the western boundary.

“Probably,” I reply. “Run the same audit.”

He makes a note. And for approximately five minutes, we are just two men who know about security systems, solving a problem.

When it’s done, Nicolai says, “That was useful.”

“Good,” I nod and turn to leave, recognizing the dismissal.

We return to our separate corners-him to his desk, me to the hallway. But the five minutes happened. And something in the air between us, when I left, was different from what it was when I came in.

Not friendship. But the beginnings of what might eventually be possible between two people who are, despite everything, both competent and both committed to the same thing.

That evening, I sit in my room with my phone, Noah’s contact already open. The conversation I need to have with him is forming. I can feel it-the things it needs to contain. The questions I need to ask him about what he would need, what Ironwood would need, what the transition would require.

Whether he’s ready. I think he’s ready. I think he’s been ready for a while and has been too loyal to say it. I think he would be an excellent Alpha. I think Ironwood would be in good hands.

I think-

I put the phone down. Not tonight. Not because I’m afraid of the answer. Because once this call happens, the thing becomes real in a way it isn’t yet. Real has consequences. Real has ripple effects. Real changes what everyone in this house knows and what they’re building toward and what comes next.

I need one more day to be the man who’s thinking about it rather than the man who’s done it. Tomorrow, maybe. Soon.

I know what I need to do. What I want to do, even. I’ve stopped pretending I don’t.

Skye finds me still sitting there an hour later. She comes to the door of the west wing-knocks, which she doesn’t

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usually do, come to my room. Which tells me she came for a specific reason-and asks, “Can I say something?”

1. Of course. “I’ll happily listen to anything she has to say, just to hear her voice.

She comes in. Sits across from me, her hands folded in her lap like she’s restraining herself from reaching out. Her expression is weighted, heavy.

“Whatever you’re deciding,” she starts. “I need you to know something first.”

I nod for her to continue.

“I’m not asking you to give anything up for me.” Her voice is clear. Certain. The voice she uses when she’s thought about something carefully and has arrived at what she actually means. “I need that to be clear. If you’re going to do something-make some decision about Ironwood or your life or what comes next-It has to be because you want the life on the other side of it. Not because you think you owe me.

“Not because you feel responsible,” she continues. “Not because the bond is telling you to. Not because you’re afraid that not doing it means losing something.” She leans forward slightly. “Because you actually want what’s on the other side.”

“It’s not about owing you,” I tell her honestly. “Though if it were, it would be no less than your due.”

“Then what is it about?”

I think about playing with Benji on the nursery floor. About the feel of Skye in my arms, my lips on hers. About the question I sat with: what do I want this life to look like?

“About what I want to spend my life doing. And what I don’t want to miss.”

She looks at me for a long moment. The bond swells between us, and I swear I can feel her hope, hope that I’m choosing her, almost like a physical thing.

“Okay,” she says quietly.

She doesn’t ask what that means yet.

She’ll know when I’m ready to say it.

We both will.

Cara Anderson Author

Thank you for reading!

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