The Alpha Who Never Loved Me (Serena and Kieran) novel Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Serena

I woke up with his arms around me.

His chest was warm against my back and his breathing was slow and steady. His hand rested on my hip and his leg was hooked over mine.

I felt comfortable. I felt good.

My stomach did not agree.

A wave of nausea sat low in my gut, and I swallowed hard to keep it down. I stayed still and focused on the warmth of his body and the weight of his arm and I told myself it would pass.

Kieran stirred behind me. His arm tightened and he pulled me closer. I felt his lips press against the back of my neck and then he paused, probably waiting for me to pull away.

I didn’t.

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He kissed me again his mouth moving along the curve of

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my shoulder. His hand slid from my hip to my stomach and I leaned into him.

Then my stomach lurched.

I ripped myself out of his arms, hit the floor running, and made it to the bathroom just in time. I slammed the door behind me and dropped to my knees over the toilet. Everything came up. My body heaved and my eyes watered and I gripped the porcelain until my knuckles turned white.

When it stopped, I sat on the tile floor and pressed the back of my hand to my mouth.

I flushed the toilet, rinsed my face, and opened the door.

Kieran stood in the hallway with no shirt on. His arms were crossed and his eyes were pinned on me.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” I tried to walk past him.

He caught my wrist. “What’s happening, Serena?”

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“Nothing is happening.” I tugged at his grip. “Let me go.’

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He did not look like he believed me. His eyes moved over my face, searching, and then his jaw tightened.

“Was it last night?” he asked. “Did what happened between us make you sick?”

“Yes,” I said.

It was a lie. But it was the only lie I had.

Something shifted in his face. “If it was going to make you throw up, then why did you come on to me last night?”

I had no answer for that. I shoved his chest with my free hand. “I need to go to work.”

He let go of my wrist. I got dressed, grabbed my bag, and left the house without looking back.

The drive to the hospital gave me twenty minutes to breathe. I checked my phone at a red light and saw a message from Jenna.

Let’s hand out later.

hyped back. Okay.

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Work swallowed the next eight hours. Gerald had me running analyses and cataloguing samples and my brain stayed busy enough that I only threw up twice more. Both times I made it to the staff bathroom in time and I rinsed my mouth and went back to my station like nothing happened.

When my shift ended, Trevor and Jenna were waiting in the parking lot. Jenna leaned against Trevor’s car with her sunglasses pushed up on her head and Trevor stood beside her with his hands in his pockets.

“We’re going to the mall,” Jenna announced. “You need to buy things and eat food and act like a normal person for two hours.”

Trevor opened the back door for me. “How are you doing?”

I climbed in. “I’m fine.”

I was fine, except for the morning sickness that had followed me through every hour of my shift. But other than that, I was okay.

re was also last night. The memory of his hands on:28

There

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my skin and his body over mine has not been able to

leave me.

I had been driven by the hormones, that was true, but a small part of me had hoped that reminding him of what waited at home would keep him here.

That if he remembered what we had, what we could still be, he would stop running to Sophie.

A stupid hope. But I carried it anyway.

The mall was bright and loud and full of people. Jenna dragged me through three stores and made me try on a jacket and bought me a pair of earrings I didn’t ask for. Trevor carried the bags and made jokes that I laughed at more than I expected to.

For an hour, I felt almost normal.

Then Jenna stopped outside a pharmacy.

“I need tampons,” she said. “Give me two minutes.”

We walked inside.

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The store was small. White shelves, bright lights, a bored

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cashier behind the counter. My eyes swept the aisles out of habit and then stopped.

Kieran stood in the feminine care aisle.

He held two different packs of pads, one in each hand, and his phone was pressed between his shoulder and his ear. He was talking to someone, his voice low and easy.

“Which one do you want?” he asked. “The purple pack or

the blue one?”

Sophie.

He was asking Sophie which pads she wanted.

I felt my heart lower to the pit of my stomach.

I stood at the end of the aisle and stared at him and the floor tilted beneath my feet. In years of marriage, Kieran had never once walked into a store to buy me pads.

Whenever I needed anything, he sent his assistant. I used to think he was too shy for it. I used to find it endearing, the big powerful Alpha who couldn’t handle a pharmacy

rul

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But he was not shy. He was standing right here, in public, holding two packs of pads and asking the woman he loved which brand she preferred. He was not too shy to do this for Sophie.

He was just too indifferent to do it for me.

Even after last night, even after living like we used to be he had still gone back to her.

The anger hit me so hard my vision blurred. My hands started shaking at my sides and my pulse hammered in

my ears.

Standing in this pharmacy with my heart cracking open, I admitted to myself that after last night, I had started to consider working things out.

Not forgiving or forgetting him. But considering the possibility that maybe he could change. Maybe there was something left to save.

I had considered it.

That consideration died right here in the feminine care

aisle.

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