Chapter 5

Alpha Scott found out I was pregnant.

Blair looked at me, full of guilt. “Eva, I’m so sorry. I swear I’ll give Leroy hell when I get back!”

Meanwhile, Leroy’s voice came through the phone, all serious and infuriatingly calm:

“Eva, you two have been together for years. Give Alpha Scott a chance. Give the baby a chance.”

Blair snatched the phone from my hands and yelled, “Alpha Scott hasn’t done one decent thing! If Eva didn’t have such a good temper, I’d break his damn arms and send him flying off with Julie. Let them be a cute little disabled couple!”

I almost laughed.

Blair was my best friend.

Leroy? Scott’s childhood sweetheart.

We used to tease them, even played matchmaker.

They got married two years ago.

Just signed the papers last week—only the ceremony left.

And me?

After seven years with Alpha Scott, I didn’t even get a clean ending.

But he still came.

He rushed in, panting, drenched in sweat.

His shirt clung to his back, his eyes frantic.

And when he saw me standing outside the operating room, his entire body relaxed like he hadn’t exhaled in days.

He pulled me into a tight hug, like he was terrified I’d disappear the second he let go.

“Eva,” he murmured. “I messed up. Please don’t do anything rash. Let’s just talk, okay?”

He smelled faintly of smoke.

Scott almost never smoked. His father died of lung cancer, and that left a mark. He only ever lit up when he hit rock bottom.

These days, he’d been everywhere—calling doctors, chasing cures for Julie.

Even strangers started asking me how I was doing.

As if I could be the reason Alpha Scott looked so torn apart.

As if I mattered enough to unravel him like that.

It was funny, really.

The smoke wasn’t the strongest scent on him that day.

Underneath it was something sweeter. Familiar.

Jasmine.

I’d caught it a few days ago, too—clinging to Julie’s clothes in the hospital.

And suddenly, it all came rushing back.

It was our second year together.

The fifth year we’d known each other.

His father had just died.

His pack, Shadow Ridge, was on the verge of collapse.

He couldn’t sleep. Night after night, he stared at the ceiling while the weight of everything crushed him.

Worried, I’d tracked down an herbalist, got a doctor’s script, and learned to boil bitter black tonics to help him rest.

I even took half a day off just to stand by the stove, watching that pot bubble, willing it to heal him.

And what did I get for my trouble?

“Eva, I just need to be alone. Don’t wait up.”

He left.

When he came back days later, he smelled like jasmine.

Now I know why.

He’d gone to see Julie.

He needed comfort, and he ran to the one thing that could give it to him—his so-called emotional anchor.

And when I asked him why he smelled like that, he smiled and handed me a bottle of perfume.

“A gift,” he said. “The clerk let me sample a few. I thought you’d like this one.”

He disappeared for days, left me boiling medicine alone, but still came back with a bottle of jasmine-scented perfume.

And I believed him.

I thought:

He must really love me.

All my frustration melted in that moment.

After that, our relationship took off. He was suddenly so close, so affectionate. He buried his face in my neck all the time.

Now I get it.

It wasn’t me he missed.

It was the scent.

He didn’t love me.

He loved how I reminded him of her.

Without even realizing it, I’d become Julie’s substitute.

A knockoff version with no idea she was playing a part in someone else’s love story.

All we really had in common was that perfume.

And I didn’t even choose it.