TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 279

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Two hundred and seventy nine

“Anita,” Barbara said, her voice carrying a hint of warning as she nudged Anita with her elbow.

Anita didn’t move. Barbara’s gaze moved from me to Wesley, then back to me again. Wesley looked mildly annoyed by the interruption, though his expression barely changed.

“Perfect timing,” he drawled. “Should I start charging admission to my office?”

Barbara nudged Anita with her elbow.

“I came to see her,” she said, sounding almost apologetic. “And then we stopped by to say hello.”/

Anita walked straight toward me.

She wore black combat boots covered in tiny silver studs, ripped jeans, and a fitted leather jacket over a dark top. Blue eyeliner framed her eyes, matching the streak of blue mascara on her lashes. It suited her.

Her gaze stayed on me with a growing fascination.

I knew what that look meant. I’d seen men look at me that way before.

If she asked me out, I already knew my answer.

She was gorgeous. I just wasn’t interested in women. I’d spent too much of my life worrying about keeping a roof over my head to think about dating anyone, let alone question what I liked. Men had always been enough to complicate my life. I wasn’t about to start giving someone the wrong impression just because I didn’t know how to handle this.

I only wanted this madness to end.

She stopped so close that I leaned back.

“Who are you?” she breathed.

Wesley groaned.

“She’s Isabella,” he said flatly. “My new assistant.”

Barbara gasped.

Anita leaned in slightly, her nose twitching as though she were trying to catch my scent.

“Your assistant?” Anita murmured. “I’d like to put in a transfer request.

I wondered if I’d heard her correctly.

Nothing about today made any sense anymore.

The man the Moon insisted was my mate wouldn’t even admit I was his. His sister, whom I’d met less than a minute ago, was openly talking as though she wanted me for herself.

What level of madness was this?

I took another step back.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she searched my face with an intensity that made my heart pound.

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whom you and eventy nine

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“You don’t feel that?” she whispered.

“Feel what?”

“There…” She reached out and slowly traced a finger down my forearm. “There’s something. It’s like there’s this buzzing around you.”

I pulled away.

“Oh, Goddess,” Barbara muttered under her breath.

Our eyes met briefly.

“That’s enough, Anita,” Wesley said, and turned to me.

“You can leave.”

I fled the office and didn’t slow down until I was halfway back to Luna Lisa’s department, wondering what the fuck had just happened.

“Look who’s finally back.”

Emerald’s voice cut straight through my thoughts.

“I told you this girl was lazy. I sent her upstairs to deliver Alpha Cameron’s outfit, and she’s spent over an hour doing one simple job.”

It hadn’t even been twenty minutes.

I needed to defend myself, but right now my mind was still upstairs.

“I can’t work like this,” Emerald continued dramatically. “She’s slowing down the whole department. Find something else for her to do. Make her fetch coffee or something, because this clearly isn’t working.”

Doris didn’t even look up from her phone.

“Doris,” Emerald snapped. “Are you listening to me?”

“I’m tired, Emerald,” Doris replied without lifting her head. “If you’ve got a complaint about her, take it to the Luna. She’s the one who hired her.”

Emerald clicked her tongue, and I finally found my voice.

“I wasn’t gone for an hour. I had to get the secretary’s signature before coming back. That’s what you told me to do.”

Both women looked at me.

“Oh.” Emerald gave a mocking laugh. “She talks.”

Wesley had asked me to become his assistant. If he wasn’t my mate, and if my entire world hadn’t been turned upside down in the last twenty minutes, I might have smiled and told Emerald exactly who had tried to transfer me into his department. I wondered how quickly that smug expression would disappear.

Before she could find another reason to complain, the conference room doors opened, and Luna Lisa stepped out first, with a handful of department heads following behind her, including Iris.

Almost at the same time, Alpha Cameron walked into the office. The conversation around the office didn’t stop, but it softened. Everyone kept working while pretending not to look.

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cared and venty nina

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The Alpha walked straight toward his wife, and something in Luna Lisa’s face changed the moment she saw him. Her smile softened her entire face as the Alpha leaned down and murmured something only she could hear.

She rolled her eyes, though the smile only widened. There was something strangely intimate about the way they looked at each other, as though they had forgotten an entire office full of people existed.

“Don’t tell me you’ve come to steal me away from work again.”

“I came to remind my wife she promised me lunch.”–

She laughed softly. “Did I?”

A few people smiled to themselves before returning to their work. The rest of us pretended not to notice, even though almost everyone had been watching.

Luna Lisa didn’t look like the Luna everyone respected. She looked like a young woman hopelessly in love. And Alpha Cameron looked at her exactly the same way.

A dreamy sigh escaped beside me.

“You’d think they were still on their honeymoon,” Iris whispered.

I glanced at her. She smiled without taking her eyes off them.

“Those two are ridiculous. Give them five minutes together and they forget the rest of us exist. Sometimes it feels as though I’m interrupting something whenever I’m taking the minutes and the two of them are together.”

I found myself looking back at them.

“I thought people exaggerated.”

“Oh, no.” Iris chuckled. “If anything, they undersell it.”

She lowered her voice.

“Most people thought Luna Lisa would never become Luna.”

“Why?”

“Because she wasn’t the obvious choice. She was the Alpha’s surrogate.”

The words caught me off guard.

“Surrogate?”

Iris nodded.

“She carried his child.”

A chill crept over me.

“What happened?”

“No one knows for sure. People say the Alpha’s first mate got involved with a cult. They wanted the baby for some ritual or prophecy or something.” Iris shook her head. “Most of it’s just rumors now. Nobody really knows what happened to her.”

I looked toward Alpha Cameron again. If any of those stories were true, then the man standing there had survived something unimaginable.

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My thoughts drifted upstairs before I could stop them. Wesley’s lips brushing mine, his mouth against my neck. His sister staring at me as though she’d never seen another human being before.

And Barbara standing there, watching.

A shiver ran through me.

Barbara hadn’t looked suspicious. She’d looked thoughtful. That was somehow worse.

I’d pick a screaming Barbara over a silent one, and I had a feeling the drama was just getting started.

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