The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate (Jason and Laila) by Caroline Above Story novel Chapter 277

Laila’s POV

I was at a total loss how to answer Ava. I didn’t want to lie to her about this or about anything, but if she became too attached to Jason, just for him to leave us, Ava would be extremely hurt. She would develop the same trauma that I felt. Unwanted. An outcast. Always wondering why I wasn’t worthy of real love.

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Ava deserved better than that.

But to lie to her about who her own father was also felt like a kind of betrayal. She would someday discover the truth. Would she then resent me for keeping it secret?

“Mommy, did you hear me?” Ava asked. Determination shined in her eyes. I knew my little girl well, so I knew she wasn’t going to let this go. “Is Alpha Jason my Daddy?”

She already knew the answer. She was just looking at me for confirmation: Would she even believe me if I denied it? Was it worth trying to deny?

“It doesn’t matter if he is or not,” I said. “You shouldn’t get too attached to him.”

“Why not?” Tears started to form in her eyes. “If he’s my Daddy… doesn’t he want me? Am I a bad daughter?”

Guilt and panic rose up so fast in me that I pulled over to the side of the road. “No, honey. It’s not like that.” When we were parked, I reached for her, but it was awkward to hold her with the center console between us.

“Then what’s it like?” she asked.

“I just… It’s complicated right now. Yes, Jason is your father, but… we haven’t really figured out how that’s supposed to work. Our family isn’t like other families. It’s complicated and messy. We need time to figure it out, okay? So it has to be a secret for now.”

“A secret?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “At least for right now. That means you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

Ava blinked a few times, and her crying slowly stopped. “Okay,” she said. “He’s really my Dad?”

“He is.”

A small smile spread across her lips. She kept her head down, like she was hoping to hide it from me, but I still saw it. She looked pleased, content that she finally had a father.

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I wished I could make it more real, but Jason just wasn’t reliable. He could say he wanted us in the pack, and that he wanted us as his family, but those were just words.

I had not forgotten, and would never forget, the sting of his betrayal. Choosing Brittany over me. He might not have cast me out of his house as she had. He might have been in the dark about the entire exile.

But I knew. He had made his choices, and those choices had cut me so deeply, they were permanent scars now.

How could I trust the man who had been so clumsy with my heart to want to protect our daughter’s?

Yet Ava already seemed happy, already committed to the idea of having Jason as her father. If he hurt her…

If he hurt us both…

I didn’t know what I would do.

Returning home, Ava and Hannah were happily reunited, with Hannah so relieved she shed a few tears of her own. After, I tucked Ava in her bed to rest until dinner. She overexerted herself at the park and needed some sleep.

Chapterdly

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With her safe and sleeping, I came downstairs and told Hannah everything I had left out when explaining what happened in

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