He Put His Ex First, So I Found My True Mate novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Who Knew

We came down the tower in the last of the daylight, and neither of us said his name.

The cottage was cold. Conal knelt and lit the woodstove, and I sat on the rug with the page in my lap.

"It's you," I said.

"I know."

"Since when?"

He fed a split log into the fire and watched it catch.

"Since a wet October morning three years ago," he said. "You came down the quay in a yellow raincoat, laughing at your phone. Ember woke up in me before I knew your name."

I stared at him.

"You knew on the first day."

"Yes."

"And a week later I had a ring on my hand, and you watched me wear it. You watched me pass your harbor every morning for three years."

"Yes."

"You never said a word." My voice came out hard. "I spent three years wondering why I felt like I was standing at the wrong door, and you were fifty yards away."

He shut the stove door and turned to face me.

"You want the other half?" he said.

"I want all of it."

"That week, you looked right at me. I was on the pier with a rope in my hands, and my wolf was gold to the eyes. You looked straight at me and you kept walking with his ring on."

"I didn't feel anything."

"I know that now."

"I felt nothing, Conal. Ember had been quiet around Torben for a year, and I thought something was wrong with me." I pushed the hair off my face. "I never loved him the way you think. I loved having a place. That's all it was."

He sat back on his heels.

"I figured a man with a ferry and a leaking roof was your second choice," he said. "I figured you'd take the pack and the house and I'd be the one you wished you'd had."

"You're the stupidest man on this coast."

"That's been said."

"You decided what I'd say without asking me."

"I did." The corner of his mouth moved. "I'm working on that."

I put the page on the floor and crawled across the rug until I knelt in front of him.

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