Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 164

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Chapter 164

Chapter 164

MATTHEW

Marcus acknowledged this with the nod he gave when he didn’t disagree but didn’t want to add weight to an uncomfortable possibility.

I went to my desk and took out the speech.

I’d written it out longhand three times, which was how I worked through things that needed to be said precisely–the first draft to get the content out, the second to find the structure, the third to make sure the words were the right ones. The version in front of me was the third draft, on three pages of paper, with a few small corrections in the margins where I’d changed something this morning

I read through it once more.

It said what it needed to say. I failed you. I let my personal situation take priority over my pack responsibilities. I was not the Alpha I should have been during one of the most difficult periods we’ve experienced. I’m asking for your trust again, not because I deserve it automatically, but because I intend to earn it, and I want to show you what that looks like rather than just tell you it’s happening

It was not a long speech. I’d made it longer in the second draft and then cut it back, because the instinct to explain at length felt like the instinct to justify, and the pack didn’t need my justifications. They needed my accountability.

The third draft was honest and not too long and said the true thing, and that was enough.

I put it in my jacket pocket and turned to the Mia report that Callahan had sent through Marcus.

Callahan’s report from the school morning had been brief and professional: no incidents, Theo’s interactions with peers normal and positive, no observation of any known persons of concern in or around school grounds. He’d added a single line at the end: * Theo told me about the dog. I told him golden retrievers have good instincts. He seemed to find this relevant.*

I’d read that line twice and decided I was glad I’d hired him.

The afternoon report, which had come in an hour ago, included a note about Mia’s apartment building. Her car was in the resident parking space where it had been all day. Building entry log, which Marcus had accessed through a contact at the property management company, showed no exits from her unit since seven that morning when she’d come back from somewhere and hadn’t left since.

She was home. She’d been home all day.

1 turned this information over in my mind the way I’d been turning it over since Marcus had put it in front of me. Mia staying in all day could mean she’d absorbed what I’d said that morning and was respecting the boundary. Could mean she was tired and had no reason to go out. Could mean she was planning something for tonight and was conserving energy for it.

1 had no way of knowing which.

What I had was Callahan in position and doubled childcare security and a pack assembly that was proceeding as planned, the way the Alpha King had asked me to proceed.

Marcus appeared in my doorway at five–fifteen. “Two hours,” he said. “Do you want to eat something before we go?”

I hadn’t eaten since the eggs this morning, which I was only now noticing because Marcus had noticed it first, which was a consistent pattern across fifteen years of him preventing me from running on coffee and anxiety during high stress days,

“I’ll eat something.” I said “Is there

“Kitchen has food,” he said. “I made sure of it

Chapter 164

course you did.”

withdrew, and I looked at my speech one more time.

ought about Theo this morning. The books and Biscuit and the managed–pleasure expression and the door that he’d walked ough without looking back.

ought about what he’d said in the car. *Saying the true thing is always the right thing even when it’s scary.*

d gotten that from Dr. Fisher, and he’d given it to me, because that was who he was–someone who passed useful things ng without making a show of it, the way Bianca had always done. The way I was only now learning to see clearly because I’d nt too many years not paying attention to what was in front of me.

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