Chapter 12—I MUST SEE HER!

MICHAEL

“And so did I, but I never abandoned my responsibilities as his father.”

“It doesn't change the fact that you've probably been praying for him to die. It would've freed you of my grip."

"Enough."

The roar that came out of me shook the room.

“How dare you?”

Rhonda immediately stepped backward, and I watched her body tremble as my Alpha aura filled the small room. Her face had gone pale, and for a moment she looked as though she had forgotten every angry word she had thrown at me.

I forced myself to take a breath and control the wolf trying to rise inside me.

“You will never accuse me of wanting my son dead again,” I said, each word deliberately measured. “Do you understand me? Whatever anger you have toward me, whatever resentment you carry, you will not use our son's condition as a weapon against me.”

She stared at me for several seconds, her chest rising and falling heavily.

Then something changed in her expression.

“You still miss Brea, don't you?”

My body went rigid.

“Don't.”

“You do.” Her voice was quieter now, but there was something vicious beneath it. “That's why you've been so restless lately, isn't it? You still think about her. You still wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn't rejected her.”

“Rhonda, stop.”

“Why should I?” she snapped. “Because I'm saying the one thing you don't want to hear?”

“You know nothing about what I'm thinking.”

“Then why did you react like that when I mentioned her?” Her eyes narrowed. “Maybe you want me to be Brea. Maybe that's what has been wrong all along. You want me to have her face, her softness, her place in your heart, but I'm not her, Michael. I will never be her.”

“I never asked you to be.”

“You didn't have to.” She laughed bitterly. “You made me feel it every single day. I was always standing in the shadow of the woman you claimed you no longer cared about.”

“That is not true.”

“Isn't it?” she demanded. “You rejected her because you thought she couldn't give you a child, and when I became pregnant, you acted as though you had finally found the woman who could give you everything you wanted. But perhaps you were only trying to replace her.”

My jaw clenched.

“You're letting your anger make you say things you don't mean.”

“No, Michael. I'm finally saying the things I've been too afraid to say.”

She wiped the tears from her face, but her voice only grew colder.

“Maybe you regret what you did to Brea. Maybe you regret choosing me. Maybe every time you look at me, you remember that I'm not her, and that no matter what I do, I never will be.”

“Enough.”

She reached for the door.

“You know what hurts the most?” she asked, her hand resting on the handle. “I spent years believing I was the woman you chose because you loved me.”

She looked back at me.

“Now I'm beginning to wonder if you only chose me because you couldn't have her.”

My eyes hardened.

“Rhonda.”

She gave me a bitter smile.

“You can deny it all you want. But I know you, Michael. And if you still miss Brea after everything you did to her, then perhaps you should go and find her instead of punishing me for never being the woman you wanted.”

She moved closer to the door.

“I am Rhonda. I will never be Brea, and I refuse to spend the rest of my life trying to become someone else just to keep you satisfied.”

I stood there in silence, staring at the wall beside her.

Her words should have angered me enough to dismiss them.

Instead, they left one name echoing relentlessly through my mind.

Brea.

The memory of her standing in the emergency room returned with startling clarity. The years had changed her, but somehow they had not diminished her beauty. If anything, she seemed more beautiful now than she had been when we were together, and there had been something about her expression that I couldn't stop thinking about. She looked hurt, shocked, and completely overwhelmed by my presence.

I had spent five years convincing myself that I had made the right decision.

Yet the moment I saw her again, everything I had buried seemed to rise to the surface.

Since Brea left me, she had taken something with her that I had never managed to recover. I had always called it peace, but perhaps it was more than that. There had been a quietness in my life when she was beside me, a certainty that I hadn't appreciated until she was gone.

And now Rhonda seemed to frustrate me at every turn.

The constant arguments, the accusations, the resentment, the endless tension between us had become exhausting, and for the first time, I found myself wondering whether I had been trying to convince myself that I was happy simply because admitting otherwise would mean admitting that I had made the wrong choice.

I looked back at Rhonda.

“This is your last warning.”

She became still.

“You can be angry with me. You can tell me that I handled something badly, and you can tell me when you think I have failed as a husband or a father. I will listen to you because you are my wife, but you will never disrespect me like that in public again. You will never challenge me in front of strangers, you will never raise your hand against me, and you will never raise your voice at me in a way that undermines my authority. If you have something to say, you will say it to me privately, just as you are doing now. Do you understand?”

Rhonda stared at me for several seconds, her lips pressed tightly together.

Eventually, she nodded.

“Yes, I understand.”

“Good.”

She turned toward the door, opened it, and walked out without another word before slamming it hard enough behind her to make the walls seem to tremble.

I remained standing in the middle of the room, staring at the closed door while frustration churned inside me.

But even as I tried to push the argument from my mind, my thoughts returned to Brea.

I needed to find a way to speak to her.

I wasn't sure if she would want to.

But I knew one thing with absolute certainty.

I wasn't going to let her disappear from my life a second time without finding out why.