The Alpha Who Never Loved Me (Serena and Kieran) novel Chapter 83

< The Alpha Who Never Loved Me

Chapter 83

Serena

Every mouth in the room closed at once; the silence pressed against my eardrums.

“What do you mean?” Michael asked.

My eyes moved from Kieran to his family to Kieran again and my heart hammered so hard my ribs ached.

“I have been married to Kieran for years.” My voice held steady. “During those years, I shared his bed. Every night he spent with me, every time he touched me, every intimate moment between us, that is the interest.” The burn in my chest spread to my throat but the words kept coming. “The nights I endured, the rough nights, the nights I gave my body to a man who did not love me, those nights are worth something. That is his interest and it is already paid.”

Kieran shot to his feet. “What the fuck are you saying?” His voice cracked through the room. “How can you put a price on our intimate nights?”

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“You put a price on the help my family received from

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< Chapter 83

you.” I held his stare. “So why can’t I put a price on the body I gave you?”

“The sex between us was intimate,” he said; his chest

heaved. “It was-”

“It was a transaction.” Each word tore a piece of me away on its way out. “Our marriage was a transaction. There was no love, no partnership, no devotion. I sold myself to you and you bought me with the debt my family owed.”

I turned to my mother.

Her face broke apart; her mouth trembled and her eyes were glass and the shame I felt sat right there in her reflection, staring back at me.

I told a room full of people that my body was a product, that my marriage was a marketplace, that my mother’s daughter was a commodity traded for debt relief.

The nausea rose so fast I pressed my hand against my stomach and my throat closed.

I walked past everyone and went upstairs and shut my bedroom door and locked it behind me.

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My back hit the door and my legs gave out; I slid to the floor and the sobs ripped through me and I pressed my fists against my eyes and cried until my chest was hollow and my throat was raw and there was nothing left inside

me to give.

Kieran

Her footsteps faded up the stairs and each one pulled the thread in my chest tighter. The bedroom door shut and the lock clicked and the sound landed in my gut and stayed there.

The number was supposed to end this. One and a half billion dollars was supposed to crush the divorce into dust; she was supposed to hear it and sit down and accept that the door to freedom was bolted shut.

She kicked it open anyway.

She kicked it open and on her way through she stripped our marriage down to its bones and held them up for every person in the room. She called our nights a transaction and she called her body a currency.

My stomach churned; the acid rose and I swallowed it2:35

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back.

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Those nights were fire and need and the kind of hunger that left us both breathless, and she reduced them to a

line item on a balance sheet.

Cora pressed against my ribs; he scraped and clawed and the bond hummed warm between us, a cruel contrast against the cold that spread through my gut and froze everything it touched.

I stood and walked toward the stairs.

“Let her be,” Sylvia said behind me.

I took the stairs two at a time and reached her door and my fist hit the wood; the impact vibrated up my arm and into my shoulder.

“Open the door, Serena.”

Nothing.

My heartbeat hammered in my ears and swallowed every other sound.

I knocked again; the frame shook under my fist. “Open the door. We need to talk.”

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“What you said down there was wrong.” I pressed my palm flat against the wood; the grain bit into my skin and I leaned my weight into it. “You know that’s not what we are. You know that’s not what it was.”

The door stayed shut and her sobs bled through the wood on the other side; my heart wrecked in rhythm to her sobs.

Footsteps came up behind me; Frederick and Sylvia stood at the top of the stairs. Frederick’s face was stone and Sylvia’s eyes were wet.

“Go,” Frederick said. “You’ve done enough.”

“I’m not leaving.” I turned back to the door and knocked again. “Serena, open this door.”

Josh’s door flew open down the hall and he charged toward me; his good hand swung at my chest and I caught his wrist before it connected.

“Leave my sister alone!” His voice broke. “Get out of this house!”

Heghrashed against my grip and kicked at my legs and L

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held him at arm’s length. Frederick pulled Josh back and wrapped his arms around the boy and held him still.

A thud filtered to my ears amongst the chaos.

I turned to see Sylvia’s knees on the floor..

She knelt in the hallway with her hands clasped in front of her chest and tears ran down her face.

“Please.” Her voice was barely a breath. “Please, Kieran. You hurt my daughter enough. Let her be at peace.” She pressed her forehead toward the floor. “Please. Let her

go.”

My hands dropped to my sides; my fingers went numb.

This woman fed me at her table and welcomed me into her home, and now her knees pressed into the floor of her own house and her forehead bent toward the ground and she begged me to walk away from her daughter.

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