Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 282 – Sera, will you stop?

Marigold giggled, her little voice dropping into something almost theatrical, like she’d rehearsed this a hundred times and loved every single run of it.

"Daddy is busy, but daddy loves Marigold so much." Her fingers counted each line like she was ticking off something sacred. "Everything he’s doing is for Marigold. Marigold is the one who inherits everything daddy is preparing. Daddy is preparing Marigold to take care of everything in the future because he loves Marigold so much."

The words came out clean, polished, perfect. Not like a child reciting a bedtime prayer. Like someone who actually believed it deep in her bones.

Voren’s whole face glowed with warmth. That hard, unreadable mask he always wore cracked open, a laugh came out of him. Not a polished laugh. Not the kind he used in boardrooms or at galas when something mildly amusing was said.

This one was real. Loose. Warm in a way that caught Seraphine completely off guard, like walking into a room expecting cold air and finding a fireplace instead.

"Good." His voice was softer than she’d ever heard it. "And how does it end?"

Marigold bounced slightly on the bed, barely able to hold herself still. The giggles came first, rolling out of her before the words could even follow.

"Whenever daddy is not around, Marigold shouldn’t think that daddy doesn’t love her." Her tiny chin lifted, proud of herself. "She should understand that daddy is away because he’s preparing better things for her."

"Good."

Just that. One word, and the way he said it made it sound like the highest praise a person could ever receive.

Seraphine stood there absorbing all of it, and something cold crept slowly up the back of her neck.

a father being sweet with his daughter. This was architecture. Voren had built something inside that little girl’s mind, brick by careful brick, and it had been done so gently, so

he disappeared or died or simply stopped existing, Marigold

She was the heir to the Ashkael empire, and everything attached to

warm Seraphine. It unsettled her in a way

could sit with it too long, something else pulled her attention. Marigold had stretched her small hand

thumbs hooking, pinky fingers curling, a whole

And Voren did it without a single trace

about it made Seraphine’s

documents. Voren’s paperwork. All those forms and filings she’d seen with no next

and let it go, but standing here watching how he’d woven himself into this child’s

be named legally? Was that why the lines were empty? Was he trying to set up a trustee? Someone to hold

it, wouldn’t Ravyn be the obvious choice? They were best friends. Or at least that

watching the quiet precision of everything he’d just done, Seraphine wasn’t so sure that friendship ran the same depth on his side. Maybe Ravyn trusted Voren completely. Maybe that trust only went one

felt. And then, without warning, she began to

toward the door. "I need to prepare

snapped up like a small animal catching a sound. Her eyes found Seraphine instantly, wide and suddenly very serious

came out urgent, almost a command.

gaze moved to the doorway. Something crossed his face just for a second, quick and unguarded, there and gone before it fully formed. He was already rising to his