Chapter 3 Less Than Her Dog

(Evelyn's POV)

Adrian said nothing.

The study was dead silent. I could hear my own heart pounding. He frowned and pressed his lips tight together, as if it had never once occurred to him that I would ask that.

After all, through six years of marriage, I'd played the dutiful, compliant Luna. I never reached for anything that wasn't mine.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the phone on his desk started ringing.

The tension went out of Adrian's shoulders at once. He let out a breath of relief and picked up the phone to check the screen.

"Evelyn." He avoided my eyes and grabbed his suit jacket off the back of the chair. "Something urgent came up, and I have to deal with it right now. Go back to our room and get some sleep. Tomorrow I'll clear my schedule and take you and Stella to Disneyland."

I didn't move. "Every marking anniversary before this one," I said quietly, "even when you were away on business in Europe, you took the private jet and flew home overnight." Some small part of me still hoped he would stay.

He came over and touched my cheek. His fingers were cold. There was no warmth in them at all. "Don't be like this. We'll have plenty more anniversaries."

I watched him hurry out of the study. His tall figure disappeared down the hallway in seconds.

Something inside me went cold.

I knew that kind of "something urgent," the kind that put that eager look on his face, could only be about Vanessa.

I let out a bitter laugh. I didn't want to hear his answer to my question anymore. Or rather, those few seconds of silence had already given me my answer.

Plenty more anniversaries. I wondered if he even believed that himself.

I sat in the study all night in a daze. My daughter's pale little face and Adrian's silence kept flashing through my mind. Before I knew it, the sky outside the window was growing light.

I pulled myself together, changed my clothes, and hurried to the hospital. To my surprise, Stella had already put on her favorite little dress. Her face, usually so pale, had a bit of color in it from the excitement.

When she saw me, Stella's eyes lit up. "Mommy, you're here. Where's Daddy? Are we going to Disneyland today?"

I looked into her bright, trusting eyes and felt a sharp pang. "Happy birthday, baby! Daddy's waiting for us at home."

Stella grabbed my hand, too excited to wait. "Then let's go home to Daddy!"

I swallowed the ache, smiled at her, and nodded. When we got back to the house, Adrian was just getting home too.

He'd changed into a brand-new shirt. But when he bent down to take off his shoes, I immediately saw the ugly reddish-purple hickey on the side of his neck.

I forced myself to look away and pretended I hadn't seen a thing. Today was the birthday my daughter had been looking forward to for so long. All I wanted was for her to have a happy one.

At breakfast, for the first time ever, Adrian pulled out the chair next to Stella and sat down.

He picked up a spoon and fed his daughter her oatmeal, a little clumsily.

Stella couldn't believe it. She was afraid to even breathe too hard. She obediently opened her pale little mouth and swallowed each bite with care.

Those green eyes, exactly like Adrian's, shone with joy and disbelief. She kept them fixed on her father, afraid that if she so much as blinked, she would wake up from this dream.

Watching them, I felt my heart ache and melt at the same time. Maybe, just maybe, he was finally trying.

Over the years, Adrian had rarely held Stella, except at pack events where everyone could see.

I couldn't stop myself from thinking back to a day two years ago.

That day, I happened to walk past the training room. Through the half-open door, I heard him talking with Owen.

"I don't know how to face Stella, let alone Evelyn." Adrian sounded irritated and deeply pained. "Every time I look at that kid, all I can see is Vanessa at the airport, sobbing her heart out. I never should have touched Evelyn!"

I was standing outside the door with a plate of fruit in my hands, and in that moment, I went cold all over.

Six years ago, I'd happened to save Adrian's grandmother. To repay me, she ordered Adrian to mark me, and she wouldn't take no for an answer.

The night he marked me, Adrian stood at the bedroom window and coldly told me there was already a woman he'd loved for years. He even promised that in three years, he would sever the mate bond with me and give me a large settlement.

But that night, he downed the drugged drink and lost all control. Seeing him burning up and suffering like that, I was too soft-hearted to push him away.

After that night, I got pregnant. When Vanessa found out, she was heartbroken and moved abroad.

From then on, Adrian was convinced I'd drugged him on purpose to claw my way up.

He believed that not loving Stella, not being good to his daughter, was the only way he could stay loyal to Vanessa, because he'd once sworn he would mark no one but Vanessa as long as he lived.

He really was an exceptional Alpha, with raw power, an impeccable bloodline, and striking good looks. But sadly, he wasn't a good mate to me. And to Stella, he was an even worse father.

I often thought, in despair, that if he and Vanessa had a daughter, he would surely give that little girl the world.

The regret was driving me crazy. If only I had never agreed to what his grandmother arranged. Then my daughter wouldn't have had to suffer because of me, stuck with a heart that had been failing since the day she was born, yet denied even a pitiful scrap of her father's love.

"Mommy, doesn't Daddy like me?"

I could still hear Stella asking me that in the park one day. She'd been watching other dads lift their kids high over their heads, and her eyes had welled up. "The other kids' daddies always hold them when they go out. But Daddy's never held me."

All I could do was hold back my tears and lie to her. "Daddy did hold you. You were just a newborn, so you don't remember."

After breakfast, I changed Stella into the princess dress she loved.

We'd just put our shoes on and were about to head out, all excited, when Adrian's phone rang again.

The moment he answered, his expression changed. Panic crossed his face, and he couldn't hide it.

He hung up and turned to us. "Wait here for a bit. Something's come up, and I have to go take care of it right now. As soon as I'm done, I'll come straight back and take you to Disneyland."

At those words, the light in Stella's eyes dimmed.

But she was a good girl about it. She held on to the hem of her dress, tipped up her pale little face, and said quietly, "Okay. Bye, Daddy. I'll be good and wait for you at home."

Adrian gave her head a quick pat, grabbed his car keys, and hurried out the front door.

The front door closed behind him, and the huge house sank back into dead silence.

We waited in the living room.

Two hours went by. Adrian didn't come back.

"Daddy must be busy with important pack stuff. He's the Alpha, so he has lots of things to do." Stella sat on the couch, swinging her little legs. She was clearly disappointed, but she was still trying so hard to make excuses for him.

Four hours went by.

Six hours went by.

By the time the clock on the wall read six, the sun had gone down completely, and the living room was sinking into darkness bit by bit.

The front door still hadn't opened. I'd called Adrian dozens of times, and every single call went straight to the same cold voicemail message.

As the waiting dragged on and on, the light in Stella's eyes went out, little by little.

It broke my heart to watch her little face grow paler and paler. In the end, I couldn't hold back anymore. I pulled her into my arms, and my voice shook. "Baby, how about Mommy takes you to Disneyland?"

That was when she finally broke down and started to cry. "Mommy, is it because I'm not good enough? Is it because I'm always sick? Is that why Daddy doesn't like me?"

She was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe, her thin little body shaking.

"That's not true. You're the best girl there is. It's not that Daddy doesn't like you. He's just running late..."

I held her thin, burning-hot body tight, and the tears spilled over. My heart hurt so much it felt like it was about to shatter, but I couldn't get out a single full sentence to comfort her.

Because I couldn't even fool myself. Adrian didn't love me. And he didn't love her either.

All that grief was more than her failing heart could take. Stella spiked a high fever. Her whole body was burning up, her breathing came fast and shallow, and soon she went completely limp and unconscious in my arms.

"Stella? Stella, baby, wake up..."

I scooped her up, ran out of the house, and rushed her back to the hospital ER.

Outside the ER, the harsh red light above the doors came on, like a death sentence being handed down.

I collapsed onto a cold bench in the hallway, my hands and feet numb. With shaking hands, I took out my phone. I wanted to keep calling Adrian. Even if I had to beg, I would beg him to come.

But the screen had barely lit up when Instagram pinged. An account I'd turned on post alerts for had just shared something new.

It was Vanessa.

As if I wanted to torture myself, I tapped on it with trembling fingers.

It was a photo she'd posted just ten minutes earlier.

In the photo, Vanessa and Adrian were sitting side by side on a leather couch in a fancy vet clinic.

Adrian's arm, the one that would never hold Stella, was wrapped lovingly around Vanessa's shoulders. With their free hands, they were both gently stroking the golden retriever on their laps.

The caption read, "The dog we raised together is just like our own child. The second you heard he was sick, you dropped everything and rushed over to be with me. Thank goodness the vet says it's just a cold, nothing serious. With you here, I'm not afraid of anything."

A dull, heavy thud.

My phone had slipped from my numb fingers and hit the hospital floor. The screen splintered into a spiderweb of cracks.

I bit down on the back of my hand so hard I tasted blood, and even then I could barely choke back the sob tearing its way up my throat.

My daughter, with her failing heart and her frail little body, had waited for him in that dim living room all day long. Now she was lying in the ER on the other side of this wall, and no one knew if she would live or die.

Yet he, my mate, Stella's own father, had broken his promise to his daughter and abandoned his dying child... just to keep his first love company at the vet, all over a dog with nothing but a cold.

I tipped my head back in grief, and tears of despair fell onto the cold floor.

So that was the truth. Stella, the daughter I'd carried for nine months and brought into this world, meant less to him than Vanessa's dog.