Amber’s POV


    Anna looked from the screen to my face.


    Frowning, I blocked the call.


    I just… don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to hear his voice.


    Julian’s POV


    After everything that happened the night before, I had a lot on my mind this morning. I could barely sleep and gave up around 4 am. I changed and came to the office, where I’d been trying to work ever


    since.


    Yet my thoughts were no less muddled here under the bright florescent lights than they’d been in the dark.


    Alice was Roman’s daughter.


    Amber had cheated on me when we’d been together


    I had thought she was a dutiful housewife. What else had I been so wrong about?


    And why, even with that betrayal fresh on my heart, was I still drawn to her? Shouldn’t I want to cast her aside now for the lies and the pain?


    Yet I found that I couldn’t. I still wanted her near me. Having her back after thinking her dead… I didn’t want to lose her again.


    We could fix the mistakes of the past. I had been at least half–responsible for pushing her away back then. I hadn’t treated her like she had deserved. How could I be surprised that she foundfort in the arms of another?


    I didn’t like it, at all. Even now I was growling, my wolf snarling inside of me at the thought of my mate with another. But I could ept my part in it, and I could move forward, I thought, despite what had happened.


    She had told me she didn’t want to marry Roman,


    Maybe they had a falling out? And Alice didn’t seem to particrly care for him. That could be telling too. Kids were sometimes intuitive,


    I didn’t know Roman to be a bad guy, though if he had been her affair partner all those years ago, maybe there was a lot more to him that I didn’t understand. To Amber as well.


    Where had they even met?


    I’d met Roman a few times at political events, but I never taken Amber to those ces. She was my wife, but only ever in secret.


    The spection and doubt was sure to drive me out of my mind.


    To distract myself, I forced myself to focus on work and that seemed effective for a time – at least until Beta came into the office and frowned.


    “You’ve seen the news,” he said.


    I nced up from my paperwork. “What news?”


    Beta paled a little. “Forgive me, Alpha. I spoke out of turn. I thought perhaps you were working early because you had seen what the


    newspapers said.”


    “What did they say?” I pushed.


    Beta had a newspaper under his arm. He always read at his desk first thing in the morning as he enjoyed his coffee.


    He hesitated now, in sharing it, but after I gave him a pointed look, he relented. He walked the newspaper over to me, then ttened it on my desk.


    When I read the headline, my stomach dropped.


    Back from the Dead, Alpha Julian’s Ex to Marry Alpha Roman.


    She told me she didn’t want to marry him…? Had they reconnected after I left her house?


    I lifted the paper, skimming the article. With each new word and sentence, my anger and jealousy red to life within me. There were even direct quotes from Roman in here.


    Without realizing it, I was gripping the newspaper so tightly that I was starting to rip it apart. Only when it was ripped down the middle did I let it go.


    “Sorry,” I told Beta. “I’ll buy you another one.‘


    “It’s fine,<i>” </i>Beta said, watching me warily. He had cause for concern. I felt like my whole world was flipping upside down.


    Amber had lied to me in the past about having an affair, and she lied to me now about not wanting to marry Roman.