TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 280

Two hundred and eighty

Wesley POV

I walked to the cabinet and poured myself a glass of water to swallow a painkiller. The headache had started creeping in somewhere between Isabella bolting out of my office and Anita looking at her as though she’d just discovered the meaning of life.

The scent of Isabella’s cologne still lingered in the room.

Grapes.

It was cheap. The sort of thing you’d find in an ordinary supermarket. Yet the scent had settled into the office, refusing to leave, and it reminded me just how close I’d come to making a spectacularly stupid decision.

If Anita had walked in thirty seconds later, she’d have caught us kissing

And then there was Barbara and I, who’d spent the last dinner with my family convincing them that we’d court and build toward marriage. Getting caught kissing another woman had nothing to do with guilt. Still, it wouldn’t have looked good, considering Anita didn’t know our relationship was fake.

Anita was standing where Isabella had left her, her nose lifting slightly as she sniffed the air.

“Is your friend okay?” I said to Barbara, pointing at my sister with the glass in my hand.

Barbara looked from Anita to me and sighed.

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Anita ignored us and looked genuinely confused.

“What do you smell?” I asked.

She blinked and looked at me.

“I don’t know.”

That answer alone made me take her seriously, because Anita always had an answer. She searched for the words, then gave up trying to make them sound sensible.

“I can’t explain it, but something happened. My wolf reacted.”

The room went quiet. Anita looked almost embarrassed saying it aloud.

“It reacted the way…” She shook her head. “The way people describe seeing their mate for the first time.”

Barbara stared at her.

“So you’re saying…”

“I’m saying I don’t know.” Anita threw her hands into the air. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what it was. I just know I’ve never experienced it before.”

I set my glass down.

“Anita, she’s clearly into men.”

Barbara turned to me.

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“How do you know that?”

“I don’t,” I admitted with a shrug. “I barely know her.”

“Exactly,” Anita said.

“That doesn’t change the fact that she’s a stranger.”

“I don’t care if she’s a rabbit with a thing for carrots,” Anita cut in. “Something happened.”

She wasn’t smiling anymore, and there wasn’t a trace of her usual teasing.

“I looked at her, and everything aligned. I swear I’m not making this up.”

I believed her. That was the irritating part. Anita didn’t exaggerate or invent stories because they sounded interesting. She called things exactly as she saw them, even when the truth made everyone uncomfortable.

“You don’t joke about something like that,” Barbara said. “You have to be sure.”

“I can’t be sure, because I don’t know what it was.” She let out a frustrated huff. “I’ve swung both ways, and nothing has ever felt like that.”

I rubbed my forehead. “I could’ve lived the rest of my life without hearing your dating history.”

Barbara laughed.

Anita rolled her eyes. She walked over and dropped into one of the chairs opposite my desk.

“I really want her.”

She said it the way she announced every major decision in her life. Once Anita reached a conclusion, she committed to it completely. She’d always been like that. As a child, she’d decide she wanted to learn something and wouldn’t sleep until she’d figured it out. As an adult, she attacked life with the same determination. Moderation had never been one of her strengths.

It made me feel sorry for Isabella.

She had no idea what was coming her way.

“I want to make her happy,” Anita continued. “I want to spoil her. I want to make sure nobody ever gives her a reason to doubt herself. I just…” She laughed softly at herself. “I want to see her smile.”

Anita had known Isabella for less than five minutes, yet she already sounded like she’d made room for her in tomorrow’s plans.

That made me think back to what had almost happened before they walked in.

If Anita was right, then getting involved with Isabella, even for one reckless night, would’ve ruined things. Worse, if Anita ever decided Isabella had rejected her unfairly, she would become cruel. My sister didn’t know how to stop caring halfway. She either gave people everything or she shut the door completely. Neither outcome would make Isabella’s life easy.

“You have to transfer her to me, Wes.”

“There’s a policy against sexual relationships with your employees.”

She waved a hand dismissively, and Barbara spoke.

“I don’t think Luna Lisa would approve.”

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Anita frowned.

“What does my mother have to do with it?”

“She might want to know more about Isabella first. You don’t know where she comes from or anything about her.”

“Oh, please.”

Anita leaned back in her chair.

“Mom still thinks that one day I’ll wake up, decide I’ve been confused all these years, and fall in love with some handsome Alpha.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Mom does not care who you’re sleeping with. She wants you to stop disappearing every night to DJ until morning. She wants you to take your responsibilities seriously. Those aren’t the same thing.”

Dad had always trusted Anita to find her own way. Mom trusted Anita too, but she just wanted to know where that way was leading. The problem was that Anita heard judgment whenever Mom asked questions. Mom thought she was guiding. Anita thought she was being corrected, and neither of them had managed to convince the other.

Anita folded her arms.

“She wants me to end up with a man, produce a spare heir, and make everyone stop worrying about the family line.”

The words left her mouth before she caught herself.

She looked at me.

“Gosh. I… I didn’t mean-”

I picked up my glass again.

“The truth doesn’t stop being true because people avoid saying it.”

She looked away.

“I just hate feeling like Mom is waiting for me to become somebody else.” She sighed before forcing a smile. “I can’t wait for you and Barbara to get married, become the perfect Alpha couple, give Mom grandchildren, and finally let me retire from being everyone’s disappointment.”

Barbara snorted. “You’ve planned our entire future.”

“I’m serious. If Mom can’t accept the person I love, that’s her problem. I’ll leave. I’ll take Isabella, and we’ll disappear.”

She meant every word. She’d walk away from a title before she’d walk away from someone she loved.

Barbara watched her for a moment before speaking.

“Let’s assume this feeling is real. The poor girl looked terrified. Maybe she didn’t feel what you felt.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a mate bond at all. Maybe it was something else.”

Anita chewed on that.

“Or maybe…” she said slowly, “it’s one-sided.”

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Barbara and I looked at each other, then we both laughed.

“There’s no such thing as a one-sided mate bond,” I said.

“I know.” Anita groaned. “I’m just trying to make sense of it.”

She looked at me hopefully.

“You have to help me.”

“Help you how? Kidnap her?”

“No, idiot. Help me win her over.”

I turned away.

“You’ve completely lost your mind.”

“Maybe. But I know what I felt, and I’m not walking away from it until I understand it.”

She headed for the door before either of us could stop her.

“Where are you going?” Barbara asked.

“To find my girl.”

Before I could think of a reason to stop her, she’d already disappeared into the corridor.

“What was that about?” Barbara asked after the door clicked shut behind Anita.

“You tell me.’

She was silent for a moment, her fingers tracing the arm of the chair before she finally spoke again.

“Do you think she was telling the truth? I mean… people who are attracted to the same sex still find their mates, don’t they?”

I nodded.

“They do. If that’s what this is, maybe Anita will finally stop jumping from one relationship to the next.”

For as long as I could remember, Anita had lived like someone chasing a feeling she couldn’t name. She’d dated women and dated men. She’d walked away from all of them sooner or later because none of them had been enough. If she’d finally found the person who made her want to stay, then I should’ve been the first person celebrating.

Instead, one question settled in my mind.

1

Why her?

Why did everyone else seem capable of finding the person the Moon had chosen for them, while all I had was silence?

The only woman I’d ever truly loved was gone, and she’d taken the future I’d imagined with her. Five years later, I was still standing in the same place.

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. Barbara changed the subject.

“So… how are you holding up?”

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She was referring to the blogs.

“They’re doing exactly what we wanted.”

She smiled. “They’re convinced so far. I told you dinner was a good idea.”

Ever since we’d been seen leaving the restaurant together the previous evening, every gossip page in the territory. had decided the future Alpha had finally found love.

Photos and speculation. People loved stories like that, especially when the ending looked obvious.

“They’re buying every bit of it,” Barbara said.

“I hope they don’t get too disappointed when we have to call it off.”

She laughed softly.

“You’ve already given this relationship an expiration date.”

“I don’t want this dragging on. You deserve to find someone who actually wants forever with you. The longer we keep this up, the harder it’ll be for people to separate the performance from reality.”

She shook her head with a smile.

“You worry too much.”

Then she stared into the distance.

“I wonder what Beatrice would’ve thought about all this.”

The name settled quietly between us.

For years, I’d avoided bringing Beatrice up first, because I never knew whether Barbara wanted to remember her that day or spend the entire day pretending the wound wasn’t there.

Barbara’s gaze had drifted to the window.

“She would’ve called us idiots,” I said.

A laugh escaped Barbara.

“She probably would’ve. And she definitely would’ve hated the lying.”

Another silence settled over us.

“I miss her, every day,” Barbara admitted.

“So do I.”

She looked back at me.

“I think she’d be proud of you. She would’ve told you that you deserve to be happy.”

I didn’t answer. Barbara reached across the desk and squeezed my hand. She’d done that a lot after Beatrice died. Back then, neither of us had known what to say. Sometimes we still didn’t.

“She’d be proud of you too,” I said, squeezing her hand back. “You lost your twin, became one of the youngest doctors in the territory, and somehow kept moving forward.”

5/6

a bunited and eighty

Barbara blinked back tears.

“I try my best, but I can never fill her space.”

“You don’t have to,” I said, squeezing her hand back. “You just do what Barbara can do.”

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