Chapter 64

Amber’s POV

After kicking Julian out of the office, I had every reason to suspect that he had reconnected with Olivia, especially after Carla told me the two of them got into Julian’s rental car together. I fully believed he and Olivia were going to drive off into the sunset together and today was the last I’d ever see or hear from either of them.

I didn’t have a clue how to feel about that.

On one hand, that would be something of a relief, knowing Alice would be safe and I could raise her how I wanted. On the other hand, it would mean that everything he had said about being genuine would have been a lie.

If he was gone, then he didn’t really want Alice to be a part of his life, he just wanted an heir. Now that Olivia was pregnant, he didn’t want Alice anymore and discarded her, just like he had cast me to the side all those years ago.

I didn’t want to believe that Julian could be so callous with the heart of a child, but perhaps being with Olivia had changed him to be even colder than he was when he’d been with me.

Even with my own upset, my biggest problem now was figuring out how I was going to tell Alice about any of this. She’d already taken to Julian like a father. Losing that connection now felt too cruel.

At the end of the day, I returned home feeling defeated.

No sooner had I set my purse down than there was a knock on the door. When I opened the door, the first thing I saw was flowers, a beautiful wildflower bouquet nearly as wide as the doorframe.

The florist peeked overtop of the flower pedals.

“Amber?” he asked.

“That’s me,” I said, a little bewildered.

“These are for you,” he said and handed them over. Somewhere under the mountain of flowers and stems was a vase. I held onto it now as I hobbled back a step into the house, careful to bring the flowers through the door.

“Who are they from?” I asked, though I already had a suspicion.

“There’s a card there, ma’am,” the florist said. He tipped his hat then turned to leave.

Needing both hands to manage this massive flower arrangement, I kicked the door closed behind me and then maneuvered the vase into the kitchen and down onto the kitchen table.

The flowers were indeed beautiful, of varying colors though mostly purples and greens, especially when they had room to spread out and weren’t scrunched up in someone’s arms.

I searched for a card and found it tucked in the bouquet, practically hidden in the bloom.

Grabbing the card, I opened it.

It read simply, Wait. And was signed by Julian.

Wait? What did he mean by that?

Did he mean wait to go on the trip for our project? With him gone, the project was set to fall apart. The Thorn pack was the head backer, after all, and I needed his extra set of hands to see the work accomplished.

Somewhat foolishly, I wondered if he meant wait… before I tell Alice. Or wait, don’t get the wrong idea.

I was more confused than ever before.

Yet when the school bus dropped off Alice a few minutes later, I was presented with a choice.

Tell her that Julian had left us without word or explanation, or… wait.

“Woah! Those flowers are huge!” Alice said, skipping into the kitchen. Her eyes were huge with childlike wonder and excitement. “Are they from Dad?”

“They are from Julian, yes,” I said.

She giggled. “I knew he liked us!”

I clenched the note from Julian tightly and hoped I was making the right choice.

“What do you want for dinner tonight?” I asked her. “Mac and cheese?”

Per Julian’s request, I could wait. But only for a little while.

Julian’s POV

When I received an alert that my flowers had been delivered, I at least felt some relief. Gods knew what Amber must have been thinking. Anyone could have seen me driving off with Olivia, and word could have gotten back to her. And then there was everything that Olivia had told her, about being pregnant…

Gods. It would be a wonder if Amber did up and leave again, taking Alice with her.

I’d only left a quick message on the card for the flowers. There was too much to say that couldn’t be properly conveyed on paper. Amber and I needed to sit down for a face to face so that I could properly clear the air.

That couldn’t happen if Amber jumped to conclusions. Or if she ran.

Maybe she wasn’t going to run away. Maybe it was just my own worries playing tricks on me. But she’d disappeared on me twice before, once almost dying in the process.

I couldn’t stand to have to chase her again. And what if something happened this third time that she didn’t come back from?

The fear sat in my stomach like a lead weight. I remembered what it felt like to hear the news about the plane crash, to know that this part of my life had been ripped away. There could be no cheating death, no fixing mistakes that were so far out of reach.

I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Amber and I needed to talk.

But first, I unfortunately had to deal with Olivia. If she was allowed to stay here, she’d only cause more problems, but with the way she flopped down on the edge of the bed in her hotel room, it was clear she wasn’t going to be packing up her things anytime soon.

“I just got here,” she said. “I should at least stay the night.”

“I’ll pay for the hotel,” I said. “They will still get their money. But you are going to the airport right now.”

“I don’t care about the hotel,” she said. “I want to see the town. I was already on a flight this morning. Who wants to take two planes in one day? Or deal with all those airports? You are being unreasonable.”

I had thought I had convinced her to return to Thorn pack, but ever since she saw that text from Alice, something shifted in her mood. She’d dropped the subject almost instantly, and became somewhat brighter. My threats even stopped working, she just laughed them off.

“I’m just following your lead, darling. You see something in this town, and I want to see it to. Something tells me there’s more than just your ex keeping you here.”

I straightened. She was talking about Alice. “That’s none of your business.”

She shrugged like it didn’t matter, but I could tell she was planning something.

“You will leave Amber alone,” I said.

“And Alice?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Her too.” The words came out a bit more forcefully than I meant them. Olivia was being a nuisance but I didn’t hate her. We had a shared past and lost a child together. Yet I couldn’t get over the rising suspicion I felt looking at her.

Maybe the main culprit was my wolf. Despite Olivia being my fated mate, my wolf had grown attached to Amber and Alice. So had I.

The idea of Olivia getting in the way of that…

“I’ll leave in the morning,” she conceded at last. Perhaps she could sense my anger.

I didn’t want to argue anymore. “Fine,” I said. “The first flight. But I mean it, Olivia, don’t start any more trouble while you are here.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said.

I turned then and marched out of her room.

With only one person on my mind, I knew where I had to go and what I had to do.

I had to fix things with Amber.