TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 171

One hundred and seventy one
NADIA POV
The pre-trial chamber was a long room with tables and walls that absorbed sound. The presiding elder sat at the head of it. She had been in the judicial seat longer than I had been alive.
Franklin waited for me in the parking lot.
“I’ll stay out here,” he said. “Let them think what they want for now.”
I held his gaze. “If this goes wrong, you don’t stay outside.”
“I won’t.”
Elder Justine asked to speak to me alone before the session began. I followed her to the side, away from the center.
“You understand the position you’re in,” she said. “You’ve been given room others wouldn’t have.”
I let that sit. They gave grace because of what my brother represented.
I folded my arms. “I didn’t come here to beg.”
“I didn’t ask you to beg,” she said. “There is a path to resolution that does not require a full proceeding. If both parties can reach a private agreement-”
“I won’t be apologizing to Desmond.”
“Nadia, please listen. You and Desmond should speak. You reach an agreement. Something that allows everyone to step back with their standing intact.”
“There’s nothing to agree on.”
“You ended an engagement.”
“He has a pregnant woman living in his former estate on his funding. He maintained that relationship for at least fourteen months while we were engaged. I ended the engagement because of that. If this hearing is going to be honest about the facts, that is where we begin.”
Her gaze did not shift. “And you moved on.”
“I’m not in a relationship.”
“You expect that to hold under scrutiny?”
“I expect facts to hold,” I replied. “What he did is not equal to what he’s accusing me of.”
“You’re choosing a harder path.”
“I’m choosing not to lie.”
She nodded. “Then the proceeding will continue as scheduled.”
Desmond arrived with two advisors. He walked in with a puffed-up confidence.
“Hello, sweetie,” he said. “You look beautiful as always.”
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Pig.
He stepped closer. “We could have avoided this.”
“You could have,” I replied. “You chose not to.”
“I made a mistake.”
“You made several.”
“And so did you,” he said.
I held his gaze. “Prove it.”
That was the shift.
He scoffed. “You want proof now.”
“I’m asking for it.”
“Careful. You might not like what you see.”
“Try me.”
The case began, and Desmond presented his first evidence.
The photograph appeared from a folder his advisor slid across the table. Low quality, shot from a distance in a car park. Franklin and me, outside his car. Franklin’s hand at my jaw. My face turned up toward his.
I remembered that night. The club had been a mistake. Those months had been a kind of managed unraveling, and I had gone there because the noise was easier than the silence of the house, and the substance I had been using to keep the edge off made the noise manageable.
I had been high. Franklin had come to get me. He had been angry but present, perhaps scared that I was spiraling.
I had kissed him in that car park because I was reckless and a little broken, and I had not expected anyone to be watching.
“See? I’ve been paying attention,” he said.
I handed the image back. “This proves nothing.”
“It proves contact.”
“It proves you’re obsessed.”
A few heads turned at that.
He didn’t react. “You ended an engagement and moved into another attachment.”
“I ended an engagement because you were unfaithful,” I said. “Do not rewrite that. You have a pregnant woman
in a relationship you maintained for over a year. These are not the same.
“I admitted that.” He stepped closer. “If I go down, you go down with me.”
“So that’s the plan. Drag everyone with you. Go ahead.”
“I’m offering you a way out.”
“I don’t want one.”
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“You should,” he said quietly. “Because once this becomes public, it won’t stop at you.”
“Say what you actually mean.”
He held my gaze. “Your brother’s house will be questioned, especially his choices.”
With a smug voice, he claimed to have seen Evangeline at a hotel in the southern quarter, around the time Cameron had been most preoccupied with the surrogate situation. He said she had been crying in the corridor and had told him things because she was distressed and not thinking clearly about who she was speaking to.
I kept my face still.
So Desmond had gone to that hotel, positioned himself there, and waited for her to be alone and vulnerable, and she had said things about the house that he had stored carefully for later use.
And now he was using them against me.
“And why are you speaking for her?”
“Because she spoke to me.”
His voice grew louder for the elders to hear.
“She was scared and said she was about to lose her mate and that she doesn’t know how to stop it.”
Silence settled around us.
“If you want to avoid the public proceeding,” Desmond said, “the terms remain what they were. Retract the engagement termination. Resume the arrangement. We close this quietly. No trial. No exposure.”
“That’s your solution,” I said.
“It’s the cleanest one for everyone.”
A sharp laugh escaped my lips.
“Do your worst, Desmond. I will never marry you.’
His gaze hardened.
“Then I’ll see you in four days.”
I had my head against the window, watching the road without seeing it. I opened the console between the seats. The small brown bottle was where I had put it, tucked against the corner. I reached for it.
Franklin’s hand came down over mine before I closed my fingers around it.
“Don’t.”
I pulled my hand back and left the bottle where it was.
“What happened?” he asked.
“That bastard brought evidence of us.”
He nodded. “We expected that.”
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“No, we didn’t,” I said. “We suspected. This is different.”
“What else?”
Thesitated. “He said Evangeline spoke to him about losing Cameron.”
“That lines up too well,” he said.
“Or it’s a lie.”
“Or it’s both,” he replied. “Their stories connect too cleanly. She tells him things in a hotel corridor, and the specific things she tells him are exactly the things that do the most damage.”
“Four days,” I said. “What does my reputation look like in four days if we don’t have anything?”
“We have the vial and the phone call you overheard.” He kept his eyes on the road. “It’s not nothing.”
“It’s also not enough.”
He did not disagree with me. “Alpha Kieran offered his territory as a temporary distance. You wouldn’t be hiding. You’d be a guest with standing. It puts you out of easy reach while we build.”
“Not yet. Not before I know what’s happening to Cameron.”
Cameron’s office was quiet when we got there. The door was open. He was at his desk, facing the screen, and he was so still that I thought the screen was off and he was looking at a dark monitor for no reason.
“Cameron,” I said.
No response.
Franklin said it louder.
Still nothing.
I reached out and shook his shoulder. He blinked, then looked up like he had just remembered where he was.
“When did you get here?” he asked.
“We’ve been standing here,” I said.
He looked between us. “Right.”
Franklin stepped forward. “We need to talk.”
“Make it quick,” Cameron said. “I have work.”
“You don’t,” I replied. “You’re not even reading that.”
He glanced at the screen. “I am.”
“You’re not.”
“Cameron, we need to talk about your health,” I said.
He pushed back from the desk. “I’m fine.”
“You didn’t hear either of us come in. You didn’t hear Franklin call your name twice.”
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“I was focused.”
“On what?”
He looked at the screen. Then back at me. I saw him reach for an answer that was not there.
Franklin moved to the desk. “We need your blood tested.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“It is,” Cameron said. “And I’m saying no.”
“You’re not well,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” I snapped. “You don’t even know how long you’ve been sitting here.”
“I said I’m fine.”
I reached into my pocket and dropped the vial on the table.
“What is this?” I asked.
He looked at it, then at me. “I don’t know.”
“That was in your room.”
“So?”
“So what are you taking?”
“Nothing.”
“Then explain this.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“Or you won’t,” I shot back.
His tone hardened. “Watch it.”
“Then give me something to work with,” I said. “Because right now you’re slipping and acting like nothing is wrong.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You said that twice already,” I replied. “Do you want to say it again so it becomes true?”
The door opened.
Evangeline stepped in.
“What’s going on?”
I turned to her. “Perfect timing. Something is wrong and no one wants to admit it. What are you giving him?”
“Excuse me?”
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I picked up the vial and held it up. “Explain this.”
Evangeline looked at it. Her face moved through something quickly. Confusion first, then a frown.
“What is that?”
“You tell me.”
“Nadia-” Cameron started.
“That doesn’t make it mine,” Evangeline said.
“Then whose is it?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. She looked at me with something that had started as hurt and was sharpening into something harder underneath.
“I cannot believe you went into our room and searched through our things. After everything I have been through with my health, after everything, you are in there looking for reasons to accuse me of something.”
“Your name comes up every time information about this house reaches someone who should not have it.”
“Desmond,” she said. “This is still about Desmond.”
“Desmond says you told him about Cameron and Lisa, and he’s using that against us.”
Cameron swore loudly. I saw the panic and guilt in Evangeline’s face.
“He’s lying,” she said.
“About seeing you at the hotel?”
She hesitated.
That was enough.
“You did speak to him,” I said.
“It was nothing,” she replied quickly. “I was upset. I said things I shouldn’t have.”
“I was scared,” she said. “I ran into him at that hotel, and I was having a terrible night, and I said things I should not have said. I was not handing him a weapon. I was talking to someone I thought was going to be family.”
I laughed. “That’s convenient.”
“You don’t get to judge me,” she snapped. “Not after what you’ve done. You betrayed your engagement. You put this house in a position it shouldn’t be in.”
“You’re deflecting. Cameron, do you hear what your mate is saying?”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“You told Desmond private information, you fool!” I cried out. “You gave him ammunition.”
“I didn’t,” she insisted. “He twisted what I said.”
“If I find out you’ve been lying,” I said to her, “this doesn’t end well.”
Her gaze hardened. “Don’t threaten me in my own house.”
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“Then don’t give me a reason.”
Cameron stepped in. “Enough. This stops now,” he said. “No more shouting.”
“You want it to stop?” I replied. “Then answer the question. Your neck has a rash an Alpha should not be capable of getting. You don’t even know what’s happening to you,” I said. “And you want me to be quiet?”
“I said enough.”
“No,” I snapped. “You’re barely holding a conversation. And who even knows if her health is real?” The words came out before I caught them. “Who knows if any of it is?”
The room went quiet.
Evangeline stared at me in horror, then she bent forward and cried harder.
The guilt arrived clean and sharp.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that part.
Cameron looked at me with an expression too tired to be anger.
“I meant the rest of it,” I said. “Just not that.”
I left before anyone could say anything back.
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