Chapter 45

Weston

When the memories flooded back, I did nothing. For hours I sat in my office, staring at the empty chair across from me—Alex had always been there. Sometimes she’d sit with me over reports. Sometimes she’d nurse a cup of tea and pretend she wasn’t listening to my complaints about council meetings. More than once she’d stubbornly fallen asleep in that chair rather than admit she was tired.

Every corner of this room still carried her presence. And I had destroyed the only place she ever felt safe.

I pressed my palms against my eyes as flashes of her life together with me washed over me: her first smile, her first night shift, the day she became my Luna, the night she told me she was pregnant. Then the memories that weren’t mine—her fear, her anger, the disgust in my own eyes. How I had rejected her, driven her away.

I wanted to rip my heart out. How could I have been so cruel? How could I have looked at the woman I would die for as my enemy?