TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 195

One hundred and ninety five

Cameron POV

I was heading toward the west wing when I noticed the room Lisa had stayed in while she was in the alpha house was slightly open.

My feet stopped before I consciously decided to stop walking. Ever since she left, the room had remained untouched. I pushed the door open and walked inside.

I walked farther into the room. The bed was made. None of her personal belongings remained there. Still, traces of her lingered everywhere.

I opened one of the drawers near the vanity absentmindedly and found a lotion bottle pushed toward the back corner. My fingers closed around it before I even thought about what I was doing.

The scent hit. Lisa.

My chest tightened so suddenly that I lowered the bottle back into the drawer. I sat on the edge of the bed afterward and stared toward the bathroom door.

Too many things had happened in this room.

Too many nights.

Too many memories and mistakes.

The council had advised me to create public distance between myself and Lisa. They framed it as reputation management and preserving Alpha stability during the escalating scandal.

I agreed. At the time, it sounded reasonable. Lisa was already being dragged across media channels and community gossip circles. Keeping her away from Wildfang probably protected her more than dragging her back into this mess publicly.

Alpha Kieran claiming security concerns as the reason for her relocation probably helped too. At least people would not be able to physically reach her.

Still, Franklin had looked at me during the meeting like I was crazy. The council didn’t blame me for getting a surrogate. The Oracle requirement complicated things too much politically, and they acknowledged that, but they kept circling back to the same issue.

I was an Alpha, and people watched me constantly. But with Lisa, somewhere along the line, the relationship stopped looking clinical.

She was gone, and I could not stop thinking about her. The room itself made that painfully obvious.

I remembered our first night. The fear in her eyes, the way she bit her lip to stop herself from moaning, the raw pleasure I felt when I entered her. Somehow, all of it felt more real inside my head now.

My phone buzzed inside my pocket.

Franklin.

I ignored it.

Matthias had provoked me during the meeting after the council discussion ended.

“You’re becoming very obedient lately,” he had said dryly while loosening his tie. “Should we be worried?”

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Normally, I would have answered with an insult. Instead, I paused because I lacked a response. My thoughts simply stalled halfway there. I remembered Matthias staring at me strangely afterward.

Someone mentioned media strategy again, and I repeated something Evangeline had told me privately that morning.

“We need stability right now. Emotional reactions only worsen public confusion.”

The room had gone quiet afterward. Franklin looked irritated.

“You sound exactly like her puppet,” he said.