Chapter 32


    Liar, Liar


    Jane turned the shower on full cold and stood beneath the spray, trying to fight back the wing needs


    of her heat. Baron had been gone for well over an hour, having taken Angelique down into his office and


    stayed there


    A thief and outcast’s daughter, she thought as she shook beneath the run of the cold water. The sort of


    person who knew how to pickpocket men at a party and transfer the items of her theft to her aplice,


    so that he could photocopy the information, before returning it. The sort of person that would know what


    people used as their safe codes. The sort of person who could return the item that they had stolen to its


    owner without detection.


    The sort of person who could sneak off during a house party and find a safe, especially if her aplice


    was offering a distraction by dragging his wife out of the house.


    If Angelique was just an employee with whom he had slept because she was avable, with whom he


    was trying to maintain peace until his revenge was fulfilled, and not his true mate, not his love, then what


    did that make Jane?


    He pulled open the shower door, a towel in his arms, and his face repentant. “I am sorry, Jane,” he said


    as she turned off the water and stepped, shivering, into the cloth. He pulled her against him and held her


    against him more than dried her. ” am sorry.”


    “You weren’t going to marry Angelique,” she was shaking so hard the word were jerked from her.


    “No, I told you that,” he replied rubbing her with the cloth to warm and dry her. He paused, frowning.


    “Didn’t I?” He wondered, and then picked her up, scooping under her knees, and carrying her


    against his chest into the bedroom. “Angelique is…” heid Jane onto the bed. “Useful, and vulnerable,


    andplicated,” he leaned back, one knee on the mattress whilst he pulled off the shirt, and then the


    trousers, casting them carelessly onto the floor, before covering Jane with his body.


    She moaned at the heady divinity of his skin against hers, her arms wrapping around him, her hands


    stroking from his arse up his back as he made room for himself between her legs and thrusted into her,


    with a groan, his hand closing on the top edge of the headboard, his muscles standing out as he bowed


    his head down to kiss her, dragging out her bottom lip.


    “I need Angelique,” his eyes sought hers. “I need what she can do, her skills, But she was never,” he


    stooped to taste her lips again. “She was never my mate.”


    Her cry held a sob of pain in it, and he groaned, dropping his head into the hollow of space


    between her chin and chest, exposed by her thrown back head. His lips grazed her skin. “Jane…” his


    breath against her skin was half a plea. “My mate.”


    She clutched him against her, in a bewilderment of passion and confusion. There were so manyyers of


    intrigue, lies, and half-truths, she did not know whether she could believe him.


    Had Angelique been telling the truth? Had Baron always intended to use Jane to gain ess to the elite


    of the packs and city? It would certainly make sense considering his aspirations for revenge. In the same


    way, her value would be transitory, and when he had attained his goal, he would cast her off, with any


    children as guarantee of position.


    But what would cause him to change his ns and discard Angelique in favour of Jane? Had he really


    felt the true mate connection as she had, and would that ever matter enough to him to change his ns?


    She wanted to believe. She wanted to believe in a magic moment that they had shared at a werewolf run


    a connection, a recognition in each other, a belonging.


    She wanted to believe that he had identified her as his true mate and had paid over two million for her,


    as bride price, as a result. That he had wanted to marry her, despite his rtionship with the incredibly


    beautiful and sexy alpha Angelique. Despite every evidence of an ongoing, sexual rtionship after


    Jane, his bride, had been brought home, despite the unting of his rtionship to Angelique… She


    wanted to believe him, that she had mattered, that she still mattered…


    She pressed her face into his shoulder and tried to find blind faith, hope, and innocence, but those things


    had long ago been crushed beneath the heels of other alpha werewolves, and, when she searched for


    them, there were so many contingencies attached that she was, herself, overwhelmed by them.


    As he lifted over her, his blue eyes meeting hers, she searched them for assurance, but there were too


    many moments in between to contradict what she hoped for. The morning after their wedding with


    Angelique at the breakfast table, the wine spilled over Jane twice, the house part where Angelique had


    torn Jane’s mother’s picture, the many mockeries in between, the removal of the imnt…


    She dropped her eyes from his and felt the shudder of his exhtion.


    “Jane,” he groaned against her skin as he came, but she did not fall with him despite her heat and felt


    the sink of disappointed passion in the stillness that followed, unsatisfied, un-replete, un-sated, the heat


    still wing within her, wanting more than what it had received, and yet she wondered if she was capable


    of receiving more. Her body felt… ragged and disconnected. Wrung out, limp and uninterested.


    “I saw you,” she whispered. “The moment you got out of your car, I saw you, and I thought: he is mine.


    And when my father told me that you had asked for me, I was certain that you had felt the same. My


    mother told me, she told me, that if I wanted happiness in life, I needed to wait for my One, my Only. I


    waited. I waited, and then you were there.”


    “Jane,” it was a moan of pain, and his head sank onto her shoulder.


    “And then you came to me drunk and hurt me,” she barely breathed the words. “And in the morning, I


    came down to the breakfast table to find your mistress there, to find that she sleeps in the chamber


    attached to your bedroom, whereas ! sleep in a guest bedroom, and you take her to social functions,


    sometimes without me, because everyone understands that being married to me isn’t enough, that you


    need Angelique, because I am insufficient for an alpha…”


    “Jane,” he lifted his head and tried to meet her eyes, but she would not look at him.


    “That you were only staying married to me until the connection wasn’t needed any more,” she said to


    him, cruel in her pain. “And then I would be discarded, used up, rubbish.”


    Còntens bel0ngs to N?(v)elDr/a/ma.Org


    “Jane,” he had ceased moving against her.


    “So, tell me why,” she said. “Tell my why and how anything has changed? When all that hase to light


    this night is the depth and extent of your lies?”