Pursuing My Rejected Luna by Cara Anderson novel Chapter 268

Ch. 38

Cassandra

Reading a room is a skill I developed early in life–the ability to walk into a space and understand immediately what’s happening in it before anything is said. Useful for years when I was using it to my advantage. Much more complicated now, when reading a room accurately means I have to decide what to do with what I find.

So when I walk into the kitchen this morning and realize I’m not alone, I’m nearly frozen with indecision. I came for coffee. Apparently, Piper did too and, unfortunately, she’s already seen me so I can’t sneak away unnoticed.

I almost turn around anyway but I don’t. Leaving would be too obvious, and obvious avoidance sends its own kind of message, and it’s not a message I want to send. Hi, I’m your boyfriend’s ex–mate and seeing you with him makes me want to rip your hair out, even though I have no right to feel that way. Yeah, probably not..

I go get my coffee and pretend I belong there instead.

We move around each other in the kitchen in silence for a moment. It’s not a hostile silence, no reason to be since I doubt he would’ve mentioned me to her at all, let alone told her who I am to him. But I know who she is, and that makes it awkward.

I’m just about to escape with my coffee unscathed when Piper says, “You’re Cassandra.”

A statement. She doesn’t pretend not to know who I am. The whole pack knows at this point.

“Yes,” I nod, plastering a forced smile on my face.

“Noah’s mentioned you.” She tries even harder to return the smile but we both know it’s fake as hell.

But besides the feigned friendliness, her tone is even, no jealous edge I’d expect if Noah had actually told her about me. I look at her–really look. She’s watching me with the direct, assessing quality of a woman who thinks there might be more to a situation than has been openly discussed and she’s decided to find out.

“Has he?” I tilt my head in question, giving away just how unlikely I find that to be.

“Not by name,” she admits, confirming my suspicion. “By-” She pauses, choosing the word. “By the way his demeanor changes when you’re in the room, or anywhere near it for that matter.”

I have a feeling this woman sees more than Noah gives her credit for. But the last thing I need is an enemy, so whatever she sees, I need to reassure her I’m not a threat. “I’m not ” I start.

“I know you’re not doing anything,” she says. “That’s not what I’m saying.” She picks up her cup. “I just needed to know if you were someone I should be thinking about.”

She leaves. Not dramatically–she doesn’t storm out or warn me away from her man. And I’m left standing in the kitchen, wondering what she decided.

She’s good, I think. Not as an actor, I don’t think she’s pretending magnanimity–I would know. She handled that with more directness and less cruelty than I deserved. She came in, said the thing, and left.

She’s genuinely good. And I have no business being in the same house as his life. A life I’m trying not to watch too carefully.

I’ve been trying for weeks–controlling where my eyes go, controlling the bond’s insistent awareness of his direction, the reflexive attention that fires every time he’s in a space I’m in.

I’m in the administrative corridor, on my way back from the eastern file room, when they pass the far end of the hall. Noah and Piper, walking somewhere, whispering conspiratorially with their heads together. My wolf surges forward with so much force, a clear rumble lurches up my throat before I can contain the roar she wants to loose.

That night I’m crossing the main corridor to the residential wing when he appears from the opposite direction. Just us. My first instinct is to flee but there’s nowhere to go.

But the new me is too tired for the energy lies require. And self–aware enough to admit I deserve his taunts and any pain he wants to inflict. So I go with honesty.

“I wasn’t trying to,” I shrug.

I could add that he wouldn’t have noticed unless he was looking too but I don’t. After what I did, he deserves his victories, even the small ones.

“But you did.” His smirk morphs into a growl.

He’s looking at me with something that has an edge–controlled, deliberate. He takes a step closer, not threatening, just close enough that the bond responds whether I want it to or not. And he knows it.

“Does it bother you, Cassandra?” He says my name the way he said it when he rejected me, with venom. “Seeing me with someone who actually wants to be there?”

The pressure grows behind my eyes, the heat that tells me tears are imminent. I swallow past the lump in my throat and hold them back. Don’t you fucking cry!

He wants me to flinch. He wants me to deflect, to reach for dignity through denial. To say of course not, I have no claim on you. Any of the above would give him something to use against me.

“Yes,” I give him honesty instead. “It does.” I hold his gaze without flinching. “I don’t have any right for it to. But it does.”

Something in his eyes flickers as he looks at me at the same time something moves through his expression- quickly, not quite readable, there and gone. I think he’ll laugh, sneer, tell me he’s glad it bothers me. Anything to dig the knife in deeper. But he doesn’t.

He just walks away without another word. And somehow, that hurts worst of all. Because I’d rather bear the brunt of all Noah’s pain, than not have Noah at all

I’m not sure when that happened.