Chapter 2

The whole hall erupted.

"Wait, for real?"

"Same hotel?"

"No wonder she was the only one on duty all seven days."

"Never would've guessed. Selena actually went and..."

More and more phones pointed at me.

Isabella came toward me step by step, heeled boots striking the stone floor, each one heavier than the last.

"Same hotel?"

"What a coincidence."

I looked at the veins popping on the back of her hand. In my last life, that slap had left my ears ringing for days. I could almost feel the burn again.

But this time, I didn't back down.

"If you can't explain yourself today, don't even think about walking out of here!"

I looked down at the receipt in her hand.

The next second, I laughed.

Not because anything was funny. Because I was so angry it came out as a laugh.

"A luxury private suite?"

"Three thousand a night?"

I snatched the receipt and jabbed my finger at the price, my voice shaking with fury.

"I wish I could afford three thousand!"

"You think I'm worth that?"

"The stipend your husband pays me for pack work, does that even cover two nights?"

"I was in a two-hundred-a-night basic single room!"

"And to this day, pack finance still hasn't reimbursed me!"

I pulled out my phone and projected my booking confirmation onto the main screen.

Room number, price, check-in time. Every detail, crystal clear.

Everyone could see it.

The murmuring stopped cold.

Isabella frowned.

But Elena immediately went red-eyed, voice trembling.

"A regular room doesn't mean you can't go to the luxury suite..."

"Nobody said you have to stay in the room you booked."

I stared at her. Then I smiled.

"You're right."

"Nobody said you have to stay in the room you booked."

"And most nights, I wasn't actually sleeping in my regular room."

The crowd stirred again.

"Oh my God, is she actually admitting it?"

"Never seen someone this brazen."

"Wait, does that mean she really..."

I was so mad I almost choked laughing.

"Because I spent every night past midnight in the office working on proposals!"

"Seven days of Thanksgiving. I booked seven nights. The total amount of actual sleep I got might not even add up to ten hours!"

"Pull the Moonshade Inn security footage right now!"

"Let everyone see whether I was sleeping around or killing myself for this pack!"

By the time I finished, my eyes were burning red.

In my last life, nobody wanted to see any of this.

All they wanted was to watch me get slapped. Watch the Alpha throw me out personally. Watch the so-called homewrecker get publicly humiliated.

This time, I was going to make every last one of them see the truth.

Whether I was out there cheating or being worked to death.

I spun around and lunged straight at Isabella.

I grabbed on to her legs and wailed like the world was ending.

"SIS!"

Isabella went completely rigid.

"What are you doing?!"

"You spent Thanksgiving as a grass widow, and I spent Thanksgiving as a slave!"

"Your husband wouldn't come home, and my Alpha wouldn't do his job!"

"How are we both this unlucky?!"

"My overtime pay hasn't been issued, my hotel costs haven't been reimbursed, my proposal got sent back after eight revisions!"

"I pulled seven all-nighters in a row, and at the end of it all I get slapped with a homewrecker label!"

"That goddamn other woman!"

"Right now I could actually kill her!"

Isabella froze solid.

The hand that had knocked my ears ringing in my last life trembled once, then, incredibly, reached down like it was trying to help me up.

"You... just get up first..."

"Let's talk about this like normal people..."

Elena's face shifted.

She jumped in fast.

"But Selena..."

"You and Alpha Damian were on comms late at night all the time. That can't all be work, right?"

That only gave me more to say.

I let go of Isabella and got to my feet.

"Sure. Let's do this."

I opened my phone and blasted the audio through the whole hall.

"The whole pack can listen in."

"My late-night passion sessions with Alpha Damian."

The next second, the recording played.

Damian's exhausted, irritated voice filled the entire room.

"Selena! It's three in the morning! Why isn't the proposal on my desk yet?"

"Selena, why isn't this done? The client says it's not high-end enough!"

"Make the title bigger!"

"Don't ask me how big! Big enough that you can see it from across the room!"

"Stay on top of the supplier! I need them there by nine tomorrow morning, no excuses!"

"You young wolves need to stop thinking about rest. Building this territory is what matters!"

His entitled, matter-of-fact voice echoed through the hall.

I listened to the same sounds that had tortured me through countless nights, and my eyes slowly burned hot.

"Listen to this!"

"I just want to ask one thing!"

"What kind of mistress is up at three a.m. with her Alpha arguing about how big a proposal title should be?"

"Even if I was the other woman, at least I'd be getting something out of it, right?"

"So what did I get?"

"A mountain of work!"

"And a big fat label I didn't earn!"

Someone in the crowd finally cracked.

"Pffft..."

A laugh escaped.

Then a few more wolves ducked their heads, shoulders shaking.

The way they looked at me shifted from suspicion to pure sympathy.

Elena was biting her lip so hard it might bleed. Her face was getting uglier by the second.

I turned and looked straight at her.

"But actually, you."

"How do you know exactly how long Damian and I were on comms over Thanksgiving?"

Elena's face went white.

Right then. DING.

The elevator doors opened.

Damian was here.