The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate (Jason and Laila) by Caroline Above Story novel Chapter 238

Chapter 238

“William told me you had assigned guards to protect Ava,” I said.

“That’s true. You haven’t been to see her?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I… I haven’t wanted to involve her in this. Sometimes… Gods, sometimes I just want to run.”

Jason tensed.

To ease him, I hastily added, “I know that won’t help anything. I’ve been running for my whole life, and look where I am. Maybe it’s only made things worse.”

“You’ve… been running?” Jason asked, caution in every word.

“It’s not a secret now. Everyone knows I’m not the real Vanessa Harper. I never was. I’ve been Irving a lie for the past six years.”

Jason lowered his coffee onto the counter and didn’t pick it up again. His gaze on mine was intense, and I felt almost like he was looking through me, straight down into the heart of me. Like he could see in me exactly who I was, all the parts of me that I had been hiding all this time.

He’d suspected from the start, so maybe he already knew. But it still felt like a revelation, earthshattering, when I told him, ” I’m Laila”

Jason’s POV

I froze, all of my suspicions suddenly confirmed. For so long, I had known in my heart that this woman was Laila, but time and again, I had those hopes dashed. Now that she was telling me the truth, it almost seemed like too much to be true. To ask for. To

want.

“I thought you’d died,” I said.

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth, tilting her head downward.

No, I didn’t want her to feel ashamed. While I wished she would have told me, my relief over her being alive and back with me, sent my heart flying to the moon. It was all I could do to contain myself, when I felt like I might shot into a thousand pieces, going every direction at once.

I couldn’t stand still. Before I knew what I was doing, I was moving around the island, crossing the last remaining distance that kept us apart from one another.

“Jason,” she said, and hearing her say my name like that, so wistful, filled up a piece of me that hadn’t been whole since I thought she had died.

Maybe I should have been angry. Maybe I would be later, when I gave myself a minute or two to think about what was happening here. But for now, all I wanted was to have this woman in my arms, to kiss her like I had all those years ago, and again more recently. To connect these two individuals that I cared about so much into one person in my mind, heart, and soul.

She was all I could see, both the version before me and the one in my memory. She had the same eyes, the same cheekbones. I had been such a fool to not be certain before.

She could only ever be my Laila.

Entirely overwhelmed my relief and feeling, as I approached her, I wrapped my arms around her. I was careful, even in this state, to keep my hands lower, on her hips, not touching the wounds on her back. Gently, I brought her towards me.

I moved slowly, giving her the chances to pull away if she wanted to.

Instead, she seemed to be caught in the same trance that had taken hold of me. She moved toward me willingly, then looked up at me with wide eyes.

Lifting a hand, I cupped her cheek with my palm, tracing my thumb over the top of her cheekbone.

She was so different, yet she was also just the same.

“Laila,” I whispered, and she gasped.

Then, leaned down and I kissed her.

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