Chapter Three

~Selene’s POV~

I hang up.

I don't think about it — my thumb simply moves and the call ends and I stand on the pavement outside the flower stall with my heart hammering so loud I can hear it in my temples.

Three seconds later, she calls again.

I watch the screen. Let it ring. Let it ring. Let it ring.

Then silence.

A text arrives.

Don't be childish, Selene. I only want to talk. Woman to woman. Meet me at the Ivory Lounge. One hour.

I stare at the message until the letters blur.

Every rational part of me says no. Every instinct I have, honed by three years of navigating pack politics and the sharp-edged social world that came with being Caden's Luna, says that walking into a room with Vivienne Cole is walking into a trap.

But then there's the other part of me. The part that is furious.

The part that wants to look her in the eye.

---

The Ivory Lounge is tucked at the edge of Cresthaven's upscale quarter — white linen, low lighting, the kind of place where people come to be seen or to be discreet, depending on the need.

Vivienne is already seated when I arrive. Of course she is.

She looks beautiful. That has never been Vivienne's problem. Dark gold hair that falls in perfect, artless waves. A fitted ivory blazer that matches the room as if she dressed intentionally for it. Blue eyes so pale they're almost silver, watching me cross the room with an expression of quiet, practiced amusement.

I sit down across from her without being invited.

She smiles. "You look pale."

"What do you want, Vivienne?"

She wraps both hands around a porcelain coffee cup, considering me with those silver eyes.

"I want to make sure we understand each other," she says pleasantly. "Caden has made his decision. I think it's better for everyone if you accept that gracefully."

"The papers aren't signed yet."

"No." She tilts her head. "But they will be. He asked me to pass along his request that you do so today. He doesn't want this to become complicated."

The deliberate cruelty of using her as his messenger makes my chest constrict.

I breathe through it.

"How very thoughtful of him," I say.

Something shifts in her eyes, a flicker of irritation that she smooths over almost instantly.

"You were always going to be temporary, Selene. I'm sure some part of you knew that." She sets her cup down. "He was mine long before the Moon Goddess decided to interfere with her little arrangement."

"The bond isn't interference," I say quietly. "It's fate."

She laughs softly. "Fate. You sound like a child. Fate is for people who can't take what they want with their own hands."

I look at her — really look at her — and I wonder, as I have wondered before, how I ever believed her beautiful.

"Why did you leave?" I ask. "Three years ago, you disappeared. Caden looked for you. He was—" I stop. "He was devastated. Why come back now?"

Something crosses her face. Just for a moment. Something complicated and dark that she buries quickly.

"The timing wasn't right before," she says smoothly. "Now it is."

She's lying. I've spent enough time in pack leadership meetings to know when someone is managing information.

"He believes you were taken," I say carefully, watching her eyes. "Held against your will."

Nothing flinches.

"I was."

"By whom?"

"By people who are no longer a concern." She picks up her coffee again. "What matters is that I'm back. And Caden has chosen. You need to accept that."

I sit back in my chair.

The velvet box is still in my pocket. My coat hangs over my arm. I can feel its slight weight like a compass needle always pointing to what matters most.

Two heartbeats.

I won't let her see them. I won't let her anywhere near this secret.

"Are we done?" I ask.

Her eyes narrow fractionally. I think she expected more from me. Tears, perhaps. Begging. Something she could carry back to Caden as proof that she'd won.

"One more thing," she says, and now her voice carries a soft, dangerous edge. "If you make any move to complicate this process — if you try to use anything to delay the paperwork, any *claim* you think you might have—" Her pale eyes hold mine. "I will make sure Caden hears the version of you that I choose to tell him."

My jaw tightens.

"There are stories about your family, Selene. About your father's pack. About where the Ashford blood comes from." She smiles. "I wonder how Caden would feel knowing exactly what kind of woman he's been sleeping beside for three years."

I say nothing.

I will not give her a single reaction she can use.

Standing, I pull on my coat and button it slowly, deliberately, the velvet box pressed safe against my ribs.

"Goodbye, Vivienne."

I walk out.

---

I go straight to my mother's house on Larkspur Lane — the small, neat terrace with the blue window boxes where she grows herbs in every season.

She opens the door before I've finished knocking, and the look on her face tells me she already knows something is wrong. She's always had that gift.

"Come in, darling."

I step inside. The scent of her — warm wool and chamomile and something like safety — breaks the last thin strand of composure I've been gripping all day.

"He's divorcing me, Mum."

She closes the door. Turns to me. And the look in her eyes isn't surprise.

It's a quiet, devastated recognition.

"Oh, Selene."

The next hour unravels in her sitting room, me on the old sofa with my knees pulled up, her beside me with her arm tight around my shoulders while I tell her everything. Vivienne. The papers. Dr. Noel. The twins.

When I finally go quiet, she's silent for a long moment.

"He doesn't know about the babies."

"No."

"Are you going to tell him?"

I look at the blue window boxes through the glass. The herbs, still brave against the cold.

"Not yet," I say. "Maybe not at all. Not until I know he won't use them as leverage — or worse, that she won't."

My mother nods slowly, her lips pressed together.

"Then we leave," she says firmly. "Before this goes any further. Before there is a formal rejection and you are too weak to survive it."

I press my hand to my stomach.

The word forms quietly, privately, beneath my ribs.

We.

Three of us.

"Yes," I whisper. "We leave."

My phone buzzes on the cushion beside me. A name on the screen that makes my stomach drop.

Caden.

I let it ring.