The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate (Jason and Laila) by Caroline Above Story novel Chapter 96

Chapter 96

Laila’s POV

I ended up leaving the cemetery without making my presence known. I had a lot of thinking to do, and intruding on Jason felt like the wrong way to go about it.

Seeing him like that…

It wasn’t something that I was likely to forget. The memory of it stayed with me for a long while, even after I returned to the hospital to sit beside Ava in her bed.

It could have been an act. Perhaps he knew I was there? But what would have been the end goal of such a show? No, I knew the man well. Or at least, I did. This hadn’t been a show. He wasn’t a good enough act for any of what he displayed in that cemetery to be fake.

He was genuinely torn open because of his grief over my loss.

But if I told him the truth, what would it mean for me? Everything would change.

I had to be careful here, and not move too quickly. After all, it wasn’t just myself that this decision would affect. Ava would be caught up in the crossfire. If things went badly, she would be hurt the most, even more than me.

She was too young, too sweet and innocent. I didn’t want her to know what it felt like to have the person you loved reject you, especially when that person was her father.

But… with how affected Jason had been at the grave, it felt somewhat cruel to keep things from him like I was doing him. Did he deserve to know that he was suffering in vain? And more, didn’t he deserve the chance to have a relationship with his daughter? And Ava with her father?

Jason didn’t have need to grieve, I was right here. It had been kind of the nurses who had once helped me to put up a headstone for me, to help conceal the truth behind such an elaborate lie. But maybe it had been unnecessary.

If Jason really

www.dred…

If he really missed us…

Ava yawned, waking up from her nap. When she saw me, she smiled. “Mommy…“.

“How are you, sweetheart?” I asked her. “You

okay?”

“I’m okay,” she said, ever the little trooper. Even after having been in the hospital for weeks – far too long – she was still in

[ good spirits. She was my own little ray of sunshine that I didn’t think could ever be truly dimmed.

At least, I prayed to every god that would listen that she wouldn’t be..

“I was thinking about Uncle Jason,” Ava said. “Do you think he’s doing okay?”

That startled me. “What made you think of him?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “He just popped into my head. He does, sometimes. Like how I think of you or of Papa William or Aunt Riley. I wish we could see him more.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was as if she was inadvertently answering the questions in my mind, in my heart.

“You want to see him more?”

“Yeah,” Ava said, making it all seem so simple. “I like him. He’s nice.”

And just like that, my mind had been made up for me. If Ava wanted to see more of Jason, than she should.

“He is nice,” I told her, agreeing with her. Secretly, I added that he was much nicer than even I had thought he was.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify