The Alpha Who Never Loved Me (Serena and Kieran) novel Chapter 136

< The Alpha Who Never Loved Me

Chapter 136

Serena

Andrew was good company.

He was easy the way people who had grown up with money and certainty were. Not careless, exactly, but unburdened. He asked the right questions during our session, he did what I told him without argument, he didn’t make the work harder than it needed to be.

Afterward, he walked me to the car.

“You’re looking better,” he said, glancing at my belly with the frank ease that showed he didn’t consider it a sensitive observation. “The last time I saw you, you looked like you were running on three hours and spite.”

“I still am,” I said. “The spite has just gotten more organized.”

He laughed, and I got in the car.

I waited until we’d turned out of the parking lot before I

opened Sophie’s thread.

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She answered on the second ring.

“Serena.”

“That suggestion you made,” I said. “About me sleeping with another man to make Kieran jealous. I need you to never say something like that to me again.”

“I was only trying to-”

“It was a stupid suggestion, Sophie. If that’s the kind of help you’re bringing, we should stop what we’re doing right now.”

She was quiet. When she spoke again, her voice had the tight. “You know why Kieran won’t let you go. It’s status. He married you because it was useful. Because your father was an Alpha and the alliance made sense and it looked good. That’s all it ever was.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But now everyone is going to find out that you own his heart. That his name is on your door. When they do, the respect they give you won’t be the kind you want.”

She said nothing.

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“Come to dinner,” I said. “Bring Ethan. A few days from now. I’ll send you the address.”

A pause. “Why?”

“Because I’m celebrating something and I want you there.”

She didn’t ask anything else. She said she’d come.

The house was quiet when I got in.

Kieran was in the living room, standing near the window with his arms crossed and his phone in one hand. He looked up the moment I walked through the door.

“What’s the apartment for?”

I set my bag down. “Good evening to you too.”

“Serena.”

I walked toward the stairs,

“What are you planning?”

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“Nothing that concerns you right now.” I kept walking.

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“Stop.”

I stopped. I turned.

He stood in the middle of the living room, his face unreadable, his arms still crossed. When he spoke, his voice was quieter than I expected.

“You’re going against the contract.”

I looked at him.

“The clause,” he said. “You’re supposed to love me. You’re supposed to take care of me. You’re supposed to treat me the way you used to.” His jaw worked once. “You’ve forgotten that.”

I stood in the hallway and let the words settle around me like something heavy dropped from a great height. He would always have the contract. That was the truth of it. He would always be able to reach for it the moment I let myself breathe.

I walked toward him.

He watched me come, his arms slowly uncrossing, his 3:21

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expression shifting.

I stopped in front of him. I looked up at his face and pressed my hand flat against his chest, felt the warmth of him through his shirt, the steady beat beneath my palm.

Then I stood on my toes and kissed him.

“I’m tired,” I said against his mouth. “I’m going to sleep.”

I stepped back, turned and then walked up the stairs.

I felt his eyes on my back the whole way up but I didn’t look around.

Kieran

Trevor had told me about the dinner.

He had not told me what kind of dinner, or who she’d invited, or why she was refusing to tell me what was happening and preferred to leave me in the dark..

Everybody, she said.

The morning of, she woke before me and dressed without

making a sound. By the time I came downstairs she was

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already in the kitchen directing Amara and two extra staff she’d apparently arranged without mentioning it, and the apartment smelled like food.

She was in a dark green dress. Her hair was loose. The small swell of her belly showed at the front of the fabric.

She glanced at me when I walked in and went back to her

instructions.

I poured coffee and leaned against the counter and watched the way her authority spoke, the way the staff moved with her rather than around her. She had always been good at this. Making a house feel like it was built specifically for the people inside it. I’d almost forgotten

that.

She was my luna for a reason.

The afternoon folded into evening.

The first knock came at half past six.

I opened the door.

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The man standing on the other side was tall. Not my height, but close enough to notice. Light brown hair, he

< Chapter 136

had a fairly handsome face but seemed tainted with arrogance. He was holding flowers.

“Oh my God, Andrew!”

I turned.

Serena had come out from the kitchen and was crossing the room with a brightness I hadn’t seen on her face in this apartment before. She reached him at the door and hugged him and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

I stood two feet away with a glass in my hand.

Cora went rigid inside me. My jaw locked and my hands stayed very still.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier,” he said, his hands briefly at her waist as they pulled apart. “There was traffic.”

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