Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Alpha's Regret: Divorced Luna Crowned Queen: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

Diana's POV "And if the wolf doesn't come in eleven days? If I hand this pack to a steward and there are no more courthouses left?""Then I'll be standing in that clearing with you when the moon comes up," he said. "Whatever happens. You won't fail alone. That much I can promise you tonight.""You keep making me promises," I said. "A woman learns not to trust those. The last man who stood in front of a room and promised me things did it in a suit, with a ring, and meant none of it.""I'm not him.""I know you're not. That's the trouble." I pulled my coat tighter, though the cold wasn't really the problem. "Ian was easy to read once I knew what to look for. He wanted things. The crown. The money. The way a room turned when he walked into it. You don't seem to want anything, and that frightens me more than wanting would. A man who wants nothing has no reason I can hold on to.""I never said I want nothing." Travis looked out over the garden, at the willow, at the gray morning coming up

Travis POV The doctor was watching me. I made my face do the thing it had learned to do across years of watching Diana marry another man and smiling through it anyway."Thank you," I said. "For coming so quickly.""Of course. She's lucky to have someone who moves that fast." She handed me a folded sheet. "Make sure she eats. And keep her off her feet today. If the dizziness comes back, or there's any bleeding, you call me before you call anyone else. Day or night.""Bleeding." The word scraped going down. "Is that likely?""It's a thing I say to every husband so that he watches for it, not a thing I expect." Her look softened by a degree. "She's healthy. The baby's fine. She fainted because she ran herself into the ground, not because anything's wrong. Feed her and let her sleep and she'll frighten you a good deal less by tomorrow.""How far along did you say.""Seven weeks. Give or take a few days." She studied me while she said it, the way a good doctor watches a man's face for wha

Diana's POV "A thing that didn't happen," he repeated. "Or a thing I choose to make true by living it. Those aren't the same to me." He held my eyes. "A father isn't a night, Diana. It's the ten thousand mornings after. I know men who share blood with children they've never once fed. And I've known men who raised children not their own so well the blood never mattered a day. I'd rather be the second kind. I've had a long time to decide that about myself.""You've thought about this before tonight.""I've thought about you before tonight." A rueful breath. "For longer than is decent, if we're being honest, and it seems we finally are."I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes and laughed, wet and helpless. "You picked a strange hour to finally be honest with me.""You picked a strange hour to faint in my garden." The corner of his mouth lifted, tired and warm at once. "We're a matched pair for poor timing, you and I. Always have been, from the very start of it.""That's not funny."

Brielle's POVI thought of the letters in the shoebox. Dear Diana. I miss you more than I let myself admit. I thought of her thin silver bracelet, wrapped in a handkerchief, kept close, kept where he could reach it whenever he wanted to hold something that used to be hers. All the small proofs I'd found and hated, that the man I ruined my name for had never once stopped loving the woman I helped him throw away."Ian doesn't know," I said."No. And you are not going to tell him." My father crossed the room and took my chin in his hand, the way he had when I was small and had done something he didn't like. "You're going to do exactly what you've always done, Brielle. Stay close to him. Smile. Wait. And when the moment comes, you'll hand me the boy who thinks he loves you, and I'll hand you the only thing you've ever truly wanted.""Which is?""To be someone your mother didn't walk out on." He said it softly, like a gift. It cut deeper than any blade he could have used. "To matter. I can

Ian's POV "I know what it means to me," she said. "It means you're standing in my living room lit up like it's the best night of your life, over her, while I sit here with your actual child kicking me in the ribs." She pressed a hand flat to her belly. "This one. The real one. The one that's actually yours for certain, because I have never once lied to you about a thing in my whole life, which is more than you can say for the woman you keep driving past.""If that baby is mine—""Listen to yourself." Her voice went sharp and thin. "If. You divorced her. You called her barren in front of a hundred phones. You rejected the mate bond. You gave me your child. And the second you hear she might be carrying, you're pacing my living room asking if it's yours." She stood, one hand bracing her back. "Do you know what that makes me? Do you know what that makes this?" She gestured at her own body, at the child in it. "A backup. In case the one you actually wanted worked out after all.""That's n