TRADING MY CHEATING HUSBAND FOR THE LYCAN KING novel Chapter 59

CHAPTER 36: PLAYING THE PART-2

He winks.

Knox notices immediately because Knox notices everything.

A low growl reverberates in his chest, so primal it vibrates through my body where we’re pressed together.

“Did Montenegro just wink at you?”

“What if he did?” I ask, and despite everything-the tension, the hurt, the arousal still humming under my skin-I find myself grinning.

There’s something deeply satisfying about watching Knox’s possessiveness flash across his face.

He glowers, his hand tightening on my waist, but before he can respond, Queenie appears with the precision of someone who’s spent years perfecting the art of extraction.

“Stop eye-fucking each other across the ballroom and come talk to me before I die of secondhand sexual

tension.” She intercepts me smoothly, her hand on my elbow. “We need to discuss strategy.”

She pulls me to a quiet corner, far enough from the crowd that our conversation won’t carry. Once we’re

alone, her expression shifts from teasing to serious.

“You saw the article.”

I nod.

“Rayana staged it,” Queenie says flatly. “Obviously. That woman would stage her own funeral if it got her fifteen minutes of relevant attention.”

She adjusts my diamond collar-examines it, really, like she’s assessing a possession marker.

“So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to be disgustingly affectionate with Knox tonight. You’re going to look like you’re completely secure in your relationship You’re going to make Rayana look like the desperate ex she actually is.”

I agree because it’s good tactical advice, even though being extra affectionate is significantly harder when I’m genuinely hurt by the photos and still raw from this morning and still aching from being edged into oblivion and denied release.

A third, this one with a predatory smile that makes my skin crawl: “The rumors about your marriage-that Gale preferred… other company. How does that feel, knowing your own husband couldn’t be satisfied? Makes one wonder if the problem is something about you specifically.”

That one lands. I feel it like a physical blow, my smile faltering for just a second before I shore it up.

“I think Gale’s choices are his own to explain.”

But the comment lingers like a bruise.

Midway through the reception, when I’m standing alone while Knox talks business with pack officials, Rayana makes her entrance.

The dress is white. Pristine, ethereal white that makes her look like an angel descended from heaven to grace us mere mortals with her presence.

She moves through the room expertly, accepting sympathetic murmurs about her illness, laughing at jokes, being everything a woman is supposed to be: beautiful, tragic, somehow still perfect despite her terminal diagnosis.

When she spots me, she adjusts her course with the precision of a heat-seeking missile.

5