TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 186

One hundred and eighty six

Lisa POV

Harry sat in the garden with his sleeves rolled to his elbows, staring past the tree line beyond the mansion’s outer fencing.

Evening had settled over the property. The last light from the sunset filtered through the pines and stretched across the stone walkways cutting through the garden beds. White lilies closed against the cold while orchids rested beneath the covered terrace near the house. Purple bougainvillea climbed the walls in thick layers around the iron trellis above the benches. The sprinklers had run earlier, and the scent of wet soil still lingered in the air.

Harry sat alone with a folder open beside him and a half-empty bottle of soda. He didn’t even notice my presence.

“Earth to Harry.”

He blinked and looked up as I sat beside him.

“You should rest,” I said.

“So should you.”

I looked down at the folder beside him, realizing he was neck-deep in whatever he was researching.

“I hate that they’re trying to destroy your career over this.”

He leaned back against the bench and chuckled.

“They can only try.”

!

“That’s not funny. I don’t think you understand how bad this could get,” I said. “You can still step away from this before it gets worse.”

Wind moved through the trees behind us. Somewhere farther down the hill, I heard security vehicles near the outer road.

“I’m not stepping away.”

“You don’t owe me this.”

“No,” he replied, his gaze on me. “I owe myself the ability to sleep at night.”

I looked away after that.

He stayed quiet long enough for me to think the conversation was over.

“My grandmother called me this morning. She sounded offended,” Harry said dryly. “Apparently, I have embarrassed the family by becoming professionally attached to a controversial pregnancy.”

Despite everything, I almost smiled.

“What did you tell her?”

“That I’m doing my job.”

“And?”

“She asked me what kind of doctor keeps choosing cases that get reviewed by hospital ethics committees.”

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“That’s awful. She’s terrified.’

He picked up the soda, and I watched him. He’d spent weeks helping me through a pregnancy nobody else wanted attached to their name publicly. He had answered calls late at night. He had treated me like a person. Now they were trying to make him look unstable for asking questions.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

“Do not apologize for this.”

“But this started because of me.”

“No,” Harry replied. “This started because somebody wanted control badly enough to poison an Alpha and manipulate a pregnant woman.”

I stared at the trees ahead of us.

The words still sounded unreal sometimes. Poisoning. Manipulation. Cults. Surveillance. It all sounded ridiculous until somebody showed you evidence attached to your own life.

Harry opened the folder.

“The strange part is how coordinated this all feels,” he said. “Hospitals are supposed to protect people. Somebody interfered with all of that without leaving obvious damage.”

“You think this Meridian group controls hospitals directly?”

“I think they influence people inside systems already in place. That’s worse.

I didn’t answer.

“I really don’t want to imagine how evil they can be.”

“That’s fair,” he said.

“You should still be careful. You could lose everything. You really think Alpha Kieran and Cameron can protect you from this?”

Harry laughed softly under his breath.

“I think having two powerful Alphas involved helps.”

The answer should have comforted me. Instead, it made everything feel worse. Cameron was powerful. Kieran was powerful. None of that had stopped this from happening in the first place.

I yawned, and Harry tapped my arm.

“You should go lie down.”

“I’m tired of lying down.”

“You’re carrying a child while your entire life collapses publicly. I think exhaustion is acceptable.”

I stood.

“Here we go with the clinical analogies.”

“I’m a doctor. It’s my last remaining personality trait.”

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That actually made me laugh. I left him in the garden and walked back inside. The house was quieter during the evening. Mom was probably upstairs, and Kieran was in his office handling pack business. I wandered through the first floor just to move around.

The house carried history in a way Cameron’s place never did. Cameron’s house looked modern and controlled. Silver Creek felt lived-in. Framed photographs covered entire hallways. Family gatherings, pack events, vacations, and old ceremonies.

I stopped near a table beside the west staircase. Alpha Kieran stood in one of the photographs beside a woman with dark hair and a sharp smile. They looked younger and happier.

There were several pictures of her throughout the hallway. In every photo, Kieran looked at her like she meant the world.

Mom’s voice came from behind me.

“They seemed happy before everything fell apart. Just like your father and I.”

I turned. She walked over and stood beside me, looking at the photographs.

“She was beautiful,” I said.

“She was,” Mom replied.

I looked back at the picture.

“I still don’t understand why somebody would help destroy their own husband.”

Mom stayed quiet.

“If she loved him enough to marry him, then why…” I stopped. “I don’t know. None of it makes sense to me.”

“It surely doesn’t make sense to Kieran either.”

I glanced toward the office hallway.

“He’s terrified of these people.”

“He should be.”

“You think guilt is part of why he’s helping us?”

Mom looked at me and sighed.

“Yes. He thinks he missed the signs. He thinks if he had acted earlier, his wife might still be alive and Cameron would never have reached this point.”

“That’s a horrible way to live.”

“It is.”

I looked down at my stomach. Another thought pushed itself forward before I could stop it.

“What if they’re after the baby too?”

Mom’s silence answered me before her words did.

“If something happens to the baby,” I asked quietly, “does all of this stop?”

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She looked away from the photographs.

“I don’t know.”

That scared me more than any dramatic answer could have. Mom usually tried to protect me from panic. If she had no reassurance left to offer, then she was scared too.

She moved us away from the staircase after that, probably because neither of us wanted to keep staring at Kieran’s dead wife while talking about cults and unborn children.

“Kieran spoke with Franklin this morning,” she said as we walked toward the sitting room. “They’re removing James from the academy.”

I stopped walking.

“What?”

“He’s being transferred out.”

“James is going to lose his mind.”

“He already has,” Mom replied. “Apparently, he accused everybody of treating him like a child. He also refused to leave at first. He met someone there.”

I stared at her.

“James has a girlfriend?”

Mom laughed quietly.

“He’s eighteen, Lisa. He was apparently very passionate about remaining near this girl while secret organizations hunted his sister.”

Guilt hit immediately afterward.

James had his own life and plans. Now people were uprooting him too because of me.

“He’ll be safer here,” Mom said.

I sat down slowly on the edge of the couch.

“I hate this.”

Mom sat beside me.

“I know.”

“Everybody’s lives keep changing because of this pregnancy.’

“None of this is your fault.”

I looked down.

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

That night, sleep refused to come back. I lay awake staring at the ceiling while the house settled around me.

The worst part was missing Cameron while being afraid of him at the same time.

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I kept remembering small things against my will. The way he touched me and made love to me. The happiness in his eyes when he touched my stomach the first time the baby moved. The way his voice changed whenever he spoke to me quietly.

Everything felt close enough to touch and impossibly far away at the same time.

And somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I wondered if being a surrogate was worth getting tangled in this

mess.

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