The Wrong Brother's Temptation novel Chapter 85

I pressed my hands together in front of me. “Did I do something wrong?”

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He looked up then, his sharp and piercing gaze staring straight through my soul, not just into my eyes.

An involuntary shudder passed through me as I imagined this to be the look he reserved for rival alphas and rogues that made grown men reconsider positions they’d held for years. He picked up the file, turned it, and slid it across the desk toward me without a word.

I blinked in confusion and slowly walked to the desk.

The only sound for those seconds was that of my shallow breathing and my heels clicking on the floor.

I looked up at him again but he simply sat in his chair with that assessing look and I gulped nervously.

He definitely wanted me to read the file.

The file was a collection of invoices which included legal fees, technical consulting, something labeled online management services, and platform compliance requests. The numbers were staggering individually and catastrophic collectively.

I looked up. “I…don’t understand.”

“That,” Alpha Asher said, leaning back with his fingers joined, “is the amount Aaron spent yesterday on taking down pictures that were circulating online.”

My heart started moving faster.

Oh fuck!

Alpha Asher knew about the scandal and thought I had made his son spend so much money on myself.

“I didn’t ask him to spend that,” I said immediately. “I didn’t even know he was going to do that, Alpha Asher. Please, you have to believe…”

He raised one hand, briefly, and I stopped.

“My boys don’t spend for the sake of it. Every bill goes through me and usually I don’t meddle in my sons lives but the amount that he spent in under an hour…it would have made you curious as well, right?”

I struggled to find the right words to answer him.

“So to satisfy my curiosity,” he said. “I asked the team what pictures, specifically, had required over a hundred thousand dollars to remove.”

He paused to level his gaze at me, and I knew what was coming and braced for it and it still hit like alpha Asher had physically slapped me.

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15:27 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 85

“Imagine my surprise.”

I opened my mouth.

“Don’t,” he warned. “I’ve seen them. I don’t need the explanation you’re assembling.”

I closed my mouth as abruptly as I had opened it.

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He then slowly got up from the chair and started walking around the desk, and I was sure he was going to come and stand directly in front of me.

I lowered my gaze and closed my fingers into fists because I was sure he was going to punish me in some way for this mishap.

“You’ve been Aaron’s friend since childhood,” he said. “That much I am aware of. Aaron is loyal to the people he cares about…sometimes beyond good sense.”

To my relief he stopped by the window, looking at the garden.

“Then Connor, who has had essentially no contact with you for years, by my understanding, announces you as his partner at my anniversary celebration, not only in front of my guests but the entire pack.”

My fingers dug into my palms even more.

“I know girls who use boys as doors,” he continued, still looking at the garden. “They consider them as access to rooms they couldn’t otherwise enter. And it’s quite a feat…” he turned then, and looked at me directly, “…to manage two doors simultaneously. Both of my sons. Now, that’s incredible”

Tears stung the back of my eyes at his not so direct accusation. He had seen the pictures and the online comments as well, decided I was a golddigger and now accusing me of stringing along both Aaron and Connor.

“That’s…not what I’m doing,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“Aaron spent over a hundred thousand dollars on your problem,” he said. “A problem, if we are being direct, that arose from photographs that were…” he paused as if deliberating his choice of words “…not photographs one would want circulating of one’s son’s supposed partner.”

“Those photographs were not what they looked like, Alpha…”

“What they looked like,” he said, “was my pack’s name attached to a scandal. Whatever might be the reality of them, I am sure you don’t need me to elaborate on what image they paint of you.”

I nodded.

“I’ve built this pack through years of hardwork, buried those I called friends and cried over the loss of loved ones. And I am not going to let this incident malign my reputation.”

He crossed back to his desk, opened a drawer and placed something on the surface between us and slid it toward me.

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15:27 Thu, Jul 23

Chapter 85

“Fill in any amount you wish,” he ordered. “Take it and step back from both of them. Aaron will recover because he already has his fiance. Connor, on the other hand…” Alpha Asher rubbed his temple before continuing, “…Connor is reckless enough without encouragement. I don’t need you fueling his vices any further.”

I looked at the checkbook.

The tears were on my face now and I refused to wipe them..

“I’m not a golddigger,” I said, my voice straining. I wasn’t after his or his sons‘ money.

“I didn’t use that word,” he responded.

“You implied it clearly.” I wasn’t supposed to speak to him this way but the words were out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“I’ve drawn a conclusion from the facts presented to me. If the conclusion is wrong, correct it.”

“It’s wrong,” I said.

“Then correct it.”

“I don’t know how to correct it,” I said, and I hated the way my voice broke on the last word slightly, adding fresh humiliation on top of the existing one.

“I can tell you that Aaron spending that money was his choice, not mine, and I didn’t know about it until you just told me. I am not using your sons,” I said.

When he didn’t say anything to contradict me, I continued.

“I have never asked your sons to grant me favors, monetary or otherwise. I have played with Aaron as a toddler…do you recall any bills or incidents from my entire life where you or the Ashford pack got in trouble because of me?”

Instead of answering me, he asked me a question of his own.

“Do your parents know about those photographs?”

“No,” I said. “But all I can tell you is that the photographs were altered and presented in a wrong way. Luna Lydia wouldn’t allow me anywhere near Aaron if she thought I was a bad influence.”

“That is the reason you are standing here and not thrown in the dungeons yet.”

Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “I doubt Connor would want to even see you again if he found those pictures. I was offering a better deal to you. At least, you were getting some money out of it.”

I kept my gaze pinned on him. “I don’t need the money, Alpha Asher”

“Fine, but I want you out of my sons‘ lives. Or your parents see those pictures.”

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