Alpha's Regret: The Seventh Time was Forever

Chapter 289 - So, you’re married

"Can we go somewhere more open?" Seraphine asked, glancing around the room like the walls were already closing in on her.

Voren shook his head. "What you want to know is not something I can say just anywhere." He turned and started moving down the hall. "My room is bigger. We can talk there."

He was already at the door before she had a real chance to weigh it, pushing it open and stepping aside without making a production of it. She walked in ahead of him and stopped just inside the doorway.

The room was not what she’d pictured.

Yes, the bed was massive, the kind that took up an entire wall and still had room to breathe on both sides. But it wasn’t the bed that caught her attention.

On one side of the room sat two large couches angled toward each other with a low coffee table between them. On the other side, two wide sofas faced a matching table, the kind of setup that felt more like a living room than a bedroom.

The whole space had a heaviness to it that wasn’t oppressive, more like it had been lived in, thought in, paced around in at two in the morning.

She hadn’t expected it to feel this comfortable.

"If you’d rather not be in here," Voren said from behind her, "there’s the study. But that room is too stiff for this kind of conversation." He moved past her toward the couches. "The garden works for easy things. Not for this."

Seraphine crossed the room and settled into one of the couches, sinking into it more than she planned to. Voren poured her a glass of water from the small table nearby, then lowered himself onto the same couch, not close, a few careful inches between them, like he’d measured the distance in his head before sitting.

wrapped both hands around the

said, "I want

and he kept it,

his forearms on his knees, eyes forward. "My mother was on her way back to the pack when a rogue attacked her on the road. Jasmine was out there alone, born a lone wolf, no pack to return to.

back. So she brought her in and decided

slightly around the glass. "So, you’re married." The words tasted bitter

His voice was flat and certain. "Everyone around me would know if I were. I don’t hide things like that. That’s

didn’t fully agree with that, but she kept it behind her teeth for now and

person. Reasonable. She was honest with me from the beginning, told me she had feelings

way and I never would. That I wouldn’t marry her." He leaned back against the couch cushion. "She took it better than most people would have. And somewhere along the way she got attached to

slowly. "You’ve lived with her for three years and

I still know that nothing would change." He looked at her

her daughter had an accident. She had to go take care of

all of that, I was in California most of the time. Whenever my parents came to the city, they stayed with me in Carli. During the last Sovereign club meeting, Marigold was having an episode so I couldn’t leave

stayed on hers, steady. "Honestly? The reason I moved back here permanently had nothing to

still. "Then

"You."

it the same way he said everything, like it was simply

Seraphine stared at him.