My Alpha's Mistress Mistook His Sister for His Pregnant Luna novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: My Alpha Loves Me

Poppy tells the whole year-long affair live to the woman she thinks is the Luna; Hazel lets her talk, then calls the Alpha on speaker.

Hazel did not touch the papers.

She looked at the signature on the page, then at the girl who was holding it up.

"Start from the beginning," she said. "Slowly. I want the people watching to follow."

Poppy blinked. She had not expected that.

On the monitor, I watched her glance down at her brooch, then back at Hazel.

"Okay," Poppy said. "Okay. It started a year ago."

My hand went flat on the desk.

"I was a first-year at the dance conservatory. I couldn't pay the second semester. A woman at the pack office told me the Alpha sometimes helped students."

"And the Alpha helped you," Hazel said.

"He did." Poppy wet her lips. "He paid my tuition. Then he took me to dinner to see how I was doing. Then he stopped pretending it was about tuition."

Two thousand viewers. Then four thousand.

The comments scrolled so fast I could not read them all.

He's married???

Is that the Luna she's talking to?

Why is the Luna so calm?

"A year," Hazel said. "Where did you meet?"

"His penthouse downtown. The one with the glass balcony."

I knew that penthouse. Caleb called it his office annex. He had told me he napped there when the board meetings ran late.

I felt something go cold in my chest and stay there.

"And what did he tell you about his wife?" Hazel asked.

Poppy glanced toward the stairs.

"That you were like a cage."

Hazel's face did not move.

"That he'd married you because the pack expected it. That you were dull and clingy and he couldn't breathe in this house." Poppy swallowed. "He said it was only a matter of time."

From inside me, very quietly, my son said, "Mom, I'm sorry."

I put my other hand over my stomach.

"Don't be," I told him in my head. "Keep listening."

I had been Caleb's Luna for three years. I had cooked his favorite meals and learned the names of every elder's grandchildren. I had stood beside him at funerals and weddings and signed the checks for the pack charity because he never had time.

A cage.

I picked up my phone and checked that it was still recording.

On the sofa, Hazel uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way.

"When did he promise you the Luna's seat?" she asked.

"Last spring." Poppy's eyes were wet again, and she let one tear fall without wiping it. "He said once the baby was born and safe, nobody in the pack could blame him for leaving. He told me to be patient. He said it was almost over."

Hazel's head tilted.

"The baby," she said.

"The Luna's," said Poppy. "He said when she has it, he'll finally be free."

I kept very still.

The first thing that came into my head was not anger. It was nine weeks of morning sickness, and Caleb holding my hair back in the bathroom at five in the morning, saying, "Whatever you need."

I had thought that was love.

My son said, "He's wrong about me. I'm not going to be the thing he gets free of."

"I know," I whispered.

Down below, Poppy lifted the divorce petition again.

"He signed this weeks ago. He said he'd have it delivered after the baby came. But I couldn't wait." She turned to the camera in her brooch with a trembling smile. "I'm sorry. I love him. He loves me. Everyone should know."

The viewer count passed nine thousand.

Somebody in the comments had typed: Wait, is this the Alpha's actual wife?

Somebody else: Alpha Rowland is going to lose it.

Poppy turned back to Hazel. She was bolder now, and I could tell that she thought she was winning.

"I'm not asking you to hate me, Mrs. Rowland. I'm asking you to be fair. Sign the papers. Let him go. Let all of us stop pretending."

Hazel let the silence run.

Poppy shifted her weight. Her smile got thinner.

"Did he tell you where he was today?" Hazel said finally.

"At work. He said he couldn't get away."

"And you believe him."

"Of course I do."

"Then let's ask him."

Hazel picked up her phone.

I sat up.

Poppy's eyes went to the phone in Hazel's hand, and I saw the first crack in her smile.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling the Alpha," Hazel said, and did not look up.

She had never once said she was the Luna.

Poppy had decided that all by herself, and Hazel was letting her keep believing it.

She tapped the screen, then the speaker icon, and set the phone on the coffee table between them.

It rang once.

It rang twice.

The camera in the brooch leaned in.

The call connected, and my husband's voice filled the living room, warm and a little tired.

"Hazel? Why are you calling me at the office? Is Joanna all right?"

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