TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 328

Three hundred and twenty eight

Isabella POV

“So, did leaving make anything better?” Harrison asked.

I scoffed bitterly. “Well, at least I had a roof over my head.”

When I got back to my father, the doctor said I was severely malnourished and the baby could die. One of the maids would sneak food to me so my stepmother wouldn’t notice. She suspected my father was behind it, but she never said anything.

“I’m sorry for every bad thing I said to you,” Harrison said. “I just needed to vent my anger out. I had no right to judge you.”

“Well, you owe me dinner,” I said, making him glare at me before he smiled.

Iris drew her stool closer to me.

“Now that you’re running from that bastard Alpha, why get involved with Wesley, who’s also from an Alpha family? I know he isn’t evil, but after everything you’ve been through, you can’t ignore the

possibility of history repeating itself.”

“We’re figuring things out.”

Harrison and Iris exchanged glances.

“I don’t approve of everything you’ve done with Wesley, but you’re both adults. If you like each other, what can we really say? But he’s going to be Alpha, and you know how serious that can get. Are you sure you can come out of this unharmed? We don’t want you getting hurt.”

I looked down at my hands.

There was no point hiding anything from them anymore. They might see me differently after this, but they were already here-and they were my friends.

“You’re right,” I said quietly. “It’s more complicated than I told you.”

They both watched me.

“It’s not just that we like each other. I… He…”

My mouth snapped shut. I didn’t know how to say it. Telling them Wesley was my mate felt harder than anything I’d ever had to say.

But I forced the words out.

“Wesley is my mate.”

Silence fell. They stared at me as though I’d spoken another language.

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They exchanged a look before turning back to me.

“What?” Iris asked.

I nodded, and she covered her mouth.

Harrison still stared at me in shock.

“But he doesn’t know,” I said.

Harrison’s brows drew together.

“I’m sure he doesn’t. He can’t feel the bond.”

“I don’t get it,” Iris said. “How can you be mates if he can’t feel the bond?”

“Beats me.”

“He likes you enough to sleep with you, and you don’t think he’s pretending he can’t feel the bond?”

Harrison asked.

“He’s not.”

“You keep defending him,” Harrison said, his voice rising.

“Harry, don’t start. She’s not a child. She knows what she’s saying,” Iris said.

“Fine,” he said. “But it sounds shady. And unbelievable.”

He fell silent, then looked at me.

“So how did you confirm he can’t feel the bond? Did he tell you?”

I shook my head.

“He doesn’t even know we’re mates.”

“That’s crazy!” Iris cried. “Why would you keep something like that to yourself?”

“He won’t believe me.”

“Oh, goddess,” Harrison said, exasperated. “Don’t you realize keeping quiet will only complicate things? He might think you’re trying to force something fake on him.”

“And that’s what I’m afraid of,” I said.

“I know he should know. I’ve tried to tell him several times. He’s the future Alpha, already publicly involved with someone else. I don’t want him to choose me because of a bond he can’t even feel. And…” I swallowed. “I don’t know if I could survive being rejected.”

“This is a big mess,” Iris said. “If you’d told him from the beginning, he wouldn’t have had a reason to think you were hiding something. He could’ve confirmed it for himself and decided what he wanted,

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instead of getting romantically involved with his mate without even knowing it.”

“You can’t carry this by yourself,” Harrison said.

“Stop making it sound so simple,” I said. “I know I’ve been stupid. I thought he was pretending at first.

Now that I know he isn’t, I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re many things, but stupid isn’t one of them,” Harrison said, shaking his head. “Neither Iris nor I know what we’d do in your shoes. But this doesn’t look good. Not at all.”

We spent the next two hours trying to make sense of it all. And although Harrison and Iris were right to call me a coward, I felt relieved to finally have my secret out in the open. Despite loving what Wesley and I had, this revelation could destroy the only relationship I’d ever felt safe in.

Harrison went down an online rabbit hole, searching for reasons why someone’s wolf might not perceive

a bond.

“I’m reading here that it could mean potential rejection,” he said.

My heart skipped.

“And it gets worse. If he can’t understand his attraction to you, or doesn’t see it as serious enough to figure out what’s wrong with the bond, things could get nasty.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Iris said. “Will Wesley even want to be with an ordinary woman like you?”

I frowned.

“Alpha families can be particular about who they marry, especially when it comes to social and

economic status. There’s a whole hierarchy around marrying within your class for the sake of family and

continuity.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Harrison said. “Luna Lisa herself wasn’t born into nobility or aristocracy.”

The question was what came next.

At first, Harrison and Iris pushed me to tell Wesley myself. But once they understood how badly it could hurt me, they started looking for safer ways to let him know.

“Why not tell Luna Lisa?”

“I can’t trust her to accept this.”

“What about his sister, Anita?”

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