Underwater: The Silent Luna novel Chapter 136

Chapter 136

“Everyone comes home eventually, Alpha.”

Levi nodded.

“Not everyone, just those that fail out there.”

The smile left her face properly then. Joseph had to suppress the urge to laugh. Levi’s words were often like that. Not loud. Not crude. Just merciless in their honesty.

“Do not worry; you are still young. Maybe you will succeed here.”

With that, Levi excused himself.

Joseph watched him go with a faint, inward amusement he did not show. One thing everybody knew about Levi was that kindness was not his strongest gift, at least not where words were concerned. The man could wound with a sentence and still sound almost

pleasant doing it.

When Levi was gone, Joseph turned his attention fully to Cynthia.

She remained by the door for a beat, then entered when he asked her to. He had deliberately sent for her. He had wanted this conversation on his own terms, in his own office, with the facts in front of him and her reactions under his eye.

And the first thing he noticed now that she was closer was that she had come overdressed.

Not absurdly so. But enough. Enough that it was obvious she had not dressed merely to answer an Alpha’s summons. There was intent in it. A deliberate effort. Joseph saw it and felt immediate distaste. She might have thought herself subtle. She was not.

“Going for an occasion?”

The question embarrassed her at once, though she covered it quickly with a nod and a smile she likely hoped looked bold.

She was there to try her luck with him. Joseph saw that too. She did not need to say it. The dress, the look, the tone, the effort. It was all there. He found it insulting and faintly disgusting.

“I look nice, right?”

She asked it as if being playful, as if the line might open the air between them into something easier, flirtier, more available.

“I want to get back into the dating market.”

There it was. Barely disguised. A signal. An offer. Or perhaps just bait cast lightly to see if he would bite.

“Good for you. I am glad you have moved on.”

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Chapter 136

His answer gave her nothing. He watched her receive that and adjust.

“You sent for me, Alpha.”

The way she said Alpha turned his stomach. There was something too soft in it, too suggestive, too deliberate. Joseph felt disgust rise more sharply then, because Cynthia had once been his brother’s woman. Whatever else happened in life, whatever man Joseph might one day move on from Ashley toward if his life took a darker shape, it would never be Cynthia. Never.

“Yes, I did; I have certain things to discuss with you.”

At once she straightened, attentive.

Joseph did not bother easing into it. He had done his digging and saw no reason to protect her feelings.

“I have been wondering why you returned, so I dug a little and found that Sabastien is now packless. As usual, you left him since he has nothing to offer anymore. I guess your dream of being Luna cannot be realised through him.”

Cynthia shook her head quickly.

“No, Alpha, that wasn’t why I left him. He became impossible after it happened, and I just had to run for my life.”

There were tears close already, but Joseph felt nothing for them. Whether Sabastien had been abusive or not, whether her fear was

real or convenient, Joseph had very little patience left for the woman in front of him. He had seen enough of the pattern to distrust

the performance.

“I also noticed that your family is having many financial difficulties. The bank has foreclosed on your mother’s house in Daneberge,

so I know you need assistance. Is that why you are trying to get back with my brother? For financial security?”

That was the point that broke her composure fully. She began to cry, the tears coming faster now.

“I can never try to reconcile with your brother for financial purposes.”

Joseph caught the mistake in that sentence immediately. So did she, judging by the flicker in her face after the words left her

mouth. She had answered the wrong part. She had denied the motive, but not the intent.

“So you do admit that you returned here to reconcile with Ethan.”

Silence. Heavy and guilty.

Joseph leaned into that silence rather than filling it for her.

“You must be awfully presumptuous to think it is okay to leave a man and return seven years later to dig for his gold. What do you

take Ethan for? Do you think he would never find someone and move on?”

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Underwater: The Silent Luna