TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 140

CHAPTER 93: A TERRIBLE FATHER–1

EMBER’S POV

I lock the door behind me and lean against it, pressing my palms flat against the cool wood, trying to

remember how to breathe.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Slow.

Knox’s voice echoes in my head, grounding me even when he’s not here, and I cling to it like a lifeline.

The tears come anyway.

Not the hysterical sobs I was expecting, but something quieter. Slower.

Tears that leak down my cheeks in steady streams, carrying with them years of grief I never let myself

feel.

For the girl I used to be. For the life I could have had. For the baby I lost and the dreams that died with it.

I cry for all of it, silently, my shoulders shaking, my reflection in the mirror looking back at me with mascara–streaked cheeks and red–rimmed eyes.

I look like a disaster.

I feel like one too.

A soft knock on the door makes me jump.

“Occupied,” I call out, my voice thick and raspy.

“Birdie.”

My whole body goes rigid.

“Birdie, please. I just want to talk.”

Dad.

“Go away,” I say, and I hate how small my voice sounds. How young.

“I know you don’t want to see me.” His voice is muffled through the door, but I can hear the tremor in it. The desperation. “I know I don’t deserve a single second of your time. But please, Birdie. Please. Just let me say what I need to say, and then I’ll leave you alone forever if that’s what you want.”

I should tell him no. I should tell him to go to hell, to take his apologies and his regrets and choke on

them.

I should protect myself the way I’ve learned to do, building walls so high that no one can ever hurt me again.

But something in his voice something broken and raw and achingly familiar – makes me reach for the

CHAPTER 2310IBLE FATHER 1

lock.

The door opens, and there he is.

Maurice Aragon looks even worse up close than he did across the dinner table.

His eyes are bloodshot, his face is gaunt, and there’s a tremor in his hands that speaks to years of damage

that can’t be undone.

He’s been crying – I can see the tracks on his cheeks, the wetness clinging to his lashes – and when he looks at me, his expression crumples like a paper bag in the rain.

“Birdie,” he breathes, and the nickname sounds devastating. Like the last word of a dying man.

“Don’t call me that.” My voice comes out harder than I intended. “You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

He flinches, but he doesn’t argue.

“Can I come in?” he asks quietly. “Just for a minute. Please.”

I should say no. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to slam the door in his face and never look back.

But I step aside and let him enter anyway, because apparently I’m a glutton for punishment.

He moves past me into the bathroom, and I close the door behind him, leaning against it with my arms crossed over my chest like armor.

He stands in the middle of the room, looking lost and out of place among all the marble and gold fixtures, a man who has never belonged anywhere trying desperately to find his footing.

“I didn’t know,” he says finally, and his voice cracks on the words. “I didn’t know about Gale. Or what he was doing to you. I swear to the Goddess, Birdie, I didn’t know.”

“Don’t-”

“I know. I know I don’t get to call you that.” He holds up his hands, placating. “I’m sorry. Old habits.” He

had kno takes a shaky breath. “I didn’t know what he was doing. If I had known, I would have… I would have…”

“What?” I ask, and the bitterness in my voice surprises even me. “What would you have done, Maurice Aragon? Shown up drunk to rescue me? Slurred your way through a confrontation with Harrison Crawford? Passed out in the car on the way to save your daughter?”

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