TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 34

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CHAPTER 23: COLD SHEETS, COLDER NEWS–2

“Rayana contacted me. It’s something about a bucket list,” he says. “She wants to meet with me. Privately.”

Of course she does. The dying ex–fiancée with her bucket list and her perfect timing.

“Let me guess.” I keep my voice neutral. “Reconnecting with you is somewhere on that list.”

“Apparently.” Knox takes a drink, and it’s not delicate. “Pack elders think I should see her. They think it looks cruel if I refuse to grant a dying woman’s last wishes.”

I’m quiet for a moment, trying to parse what I’m supposed to feel. There’s jealousy, certainly, sharp and ugly.

But underneath it, there’s the understanding that a dying woman trumps a fake girlfriend. A dying woman probably trumps most things.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think it’s a trap.” His jaw tightens. “But I also think refusing makes me look like an asshole to everyone who matters.”

“So you’re asking my permission?”

“I’m asking what you think I should do.”

This is a test. I realize it with absolute clarity. Knox is trying to figure out if I trust him.

If I’m secure enough in our arrangement to handle him spending time with Rayana. He’s asking me to prove that I can be the sort of woman who doesn’t make demands, who understands the boundaries of what we have.

“I think,” I say slowly, “that you should do what you think is right. Not what makes you look good. Not what the elders want. What you actually-”

His phone rings.

The sound is jarring in the quiet, the kind of ring that only comes through when it’s important. Knox doesn’t move to answer it immediately. He pulls the phone from his pocket, and even in the darkness, I can see the shift in his expression when he reads the caller ID.

“Nathaniel.” His voice has already changed. Sharper. More focused. “It’s four in the morning.”

I can’t hear what Nathaniel is saying, but I can hear the tone. Urgent. Controlled.

Knox’s entire body goes still.

When the elevator opens, Nathaniel emerges with two security guards flanking him, and

between them is Gale.

But this isn’t the Gale from the airport meltdown. This isn’t the screaming, enraged version that tried to claw his way through crowds to get to me.

This is the other Gale. The one I’ve learned to fear in a different way. The one that made me

stay for four years.

He’s carrying a pale pink box tied with ribbon and a small amber bottle. His expression is soft with concern, his eyes gentle and wounded like a saint who’s been repeatedly misunderstood.

He’s wearing a cashmere sweater I recognize from our first Christmas together, before I understood what I’d actually married into.

When Nathaniel releases him to stand on his own, he doesn’t lunge. Or scream, or threaten.

He walks calmly toward me with his hands visible, palms up in surrender, and every cell in my body recoils.

Knox steps between us before Gale can get close.