Chapter 18
Gemma
My fingers curl. If I had a wolf, this is the moment I’d grow claws.
What the hell is Cassian thinking?
Reyna turns and greets me with the sweetest smile.
“Gemma! It’s been too long, sister! I just returned from abroad a
few days ago and I don’t have a car yet. I asked Cassian to drop
me somewhere on the way to the pack house. You don’t mind, do
you?”
How generous of her to phrase it like a question to me. As if my
answer matters. She’s already here!
Her voice is sweet, but there’s a smirk on her lips. One Cassian
can’t see because of the way she’s turned to look at me. And one
that I know very, very well.
At least she isn’t going to the dinner, I suppose.
I have no interest in watching Reyna and Cassian engage in public displays of affection in front of his family while I stand there like a
third wheel.
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“Your dress is in the bag in the back,” Cassian says, sounding bored. “You can change in the car on the way over.”
Every year when we do this, Adam buys me a dress to wear, and
he has great taste. I slide into the back seat and close the door. Cassian pulls away from the curb. I make no move toward the bag
with the dress.
“What are you doing?” Cassian demands when he turns the corner and I still haven’t touched the bag. “Get dressed.”
“I’ll change in the bathroom when we get to Blackwell Mansion,” I
say.
He looks in the mirror, and it’s like I can feel his eyes picking apart my non–designer, reasonably priced clothes.
“Change now,” he growls.
I sit in silence and let the atmosphere get tense. No way in hell am
I changing my clothes in front of my future ex–husband and my
sister the evil mistress.
Reyna lets out a tittering laugh. “Oh, Cassian. I’m sure she’s just
embarrassed because I’m here.”
“What are you talking about? You two grew up together,” Cassian
says.
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I don’t say anything. I don’t have to. We’ve arrived at the massive, Imposing mansion that serves as the Smokewind Pack House. It’s on a large property, but it’s close enough to other things in the city. that Reyna will easily be able to walk wherever she’s going.
If she’s actually going somewhere, and this whole thing wasn’t
just a ruse for her to ride around in the car with my husband.
I grab the bag and open the door. I’m lucky I do it as fast as I do,
because an instant later, Cassian tries to lock the door on me. I
assume to force me to obey him.
Screw that.
“I’ll see you inside.”
I walk away fast, before he can say anything. I don’t want to watch Reyna kiss him goodbye.
When I enter the mansion, there are several people already sitting
in the living room just off the foyer. They all turn to look when the door opens, and I groan inwardly.
I was hoping to sneak past them to the bathroom to change, but now I’m going into battle without any armor.
That’s what makeup and clothing and hairstyles are to the rich-
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armor. It makes people see them as more than human, and that perception lets them get away with whatever the hell they want.
I hold the dress bag in my hand as they look at me, and I can see the disgust in their eyes. Cassian’s aunts are the worst of the lot. They love to look down on me and judge every little thing I do.
Cassian never sticks around long enough to hear how they speak to me, so he doesn’t know, and I’ve always been so careful not to
rock the boat.
When I did tell him once that they were rude to me, he told me I
was overreacting.
I vowed never to bring it up again after that.
“She’s the wife of the acting Alpha and she dresses like that?”
someone whispers.
“It’s true what they say,” I hear from another. “A duck can never
become a swan.”
The words wash over me, and I expect to feel cringing
embarrassment. Instead, I don’t really feel anything.
Without their makeup and dresses, they’re all ducks, too.
Besides, none of them actually dare say anything really cutting
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about me. Even if I don’t have Cassian’s protection, they all know I
have Donovan’s.
“I just need to change,” I say, smiling brightly. “I’ll be right back.
I go upstairs and put on the dress. It’s immaculate, of course. Adam is pretty wonderful.
I look in the mirror at my plain makeup and take out my secret weapon for the night: red lipstick.
I know for a fact this shade will transform my whole face, and it looks amazing on me.
No more little rabbit. No more sinking into the background like Cassian’s perfect little wife.
Tonight, I’m going to make a splash.
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tr Gifts
21:18
Divorcing My Alpha King.
Chapter 19
