Chapter 20
Calhoun’s pov~
I almost didn’t recognize the place at first, here was a small rooftop bistro tucked behind the new glass towers of the neighboring Pack’s business district. It had been chosen for its quietness: modern steel and greenery, a place people could disappear into without running into anyone they knew. That was probably the point.
I stepped through the door and my world narrowed to the one figure in the corner. Elodie. She sat with her back to the low city noise, a plain sweater, her hair pulled up into the loose knot she used whenever she wanted to be invisible. It should have been a relief to see her safe; instead it felt like walking into a room that had been emptied of air. One month apart and the ache felt like punishment I hadn’t earned.
She looked different, softer somehow, not the prim woman who sat at my desk. There was no crisp blouse, no neat office hair. There, was the Elodie I used to catch glancing at me during meetings, the one who’d tucked things into my bag without saying why. For a second, I wanted nothing more than to cross the room and press her to me, to fix whatever I had broken.
I forced my smile into place and walked over like a man doing what he knew would be judged later. “Elodie,” I said. “It’s been a while.” My heart raced.
Her eyes didn’t lift right away. When they did, there was no welcome in them, only the flatness of someone who’d rehearsed goodbyes. “Let’s not waste time,” she said. Her voice was small, the way small things can still be sharp. “I only agreed to meet because I needed to close this p>
There it was, a soft blade. I couldn’t keep myself from stumbling forward. “I know,” I said before I could stop myself. “I know I destroyed things. I let Carmela tear everything apart. I…I didn’t see what I wanted until it was gone. I love you, Elodie. I always—” The rest of it tumbled out: how blind I’d been, how I’d let the wrongness seem easier than the truth. How I’d been a coward.
I pictured the scene that would save me: her standing, throwing herself into me, forgiveness falling easy like rain. Instead she watched me like someone watching a play they hated but felt obliged to finish.
“Too late,” she said, and the words landed harder than anything anyone had ever thrown at me. “Your apology doesn’t change the month I spent waking up without you. It doesn’t change the things I tolerated because I believed they were temporary. I don’t love you anymore, Calhoun p>
Her hand slipped from the coffee cup as if it burned; she stood and began to gather herself with the calm of someone who had rehearsed every movement. It should have been a small thing, an exit but it felt like the floor beneath me dropped away.
“No,” I said. I grabbed her wrist before she reached the door. The panic in me was not dignified. “Don’t say that. We can fix it. I can fix it. I’ve dealt with her. I’ll leave everything behind. Name it, anything, I’ll give it to you. Five years. We had five years of something real. Don’t throw it away for one month of rage p>
She pulled free with a strange strength I hadn’t expected. Her voice was quiet but it carried so much weight. “That month was exactly what I needed. I had to see you clearly, without excuses, without the shadow of someone else on every plan. I don’t love you anymore, Calhoun. I’m not your return ticket p>
Those words… I felt them as if a hand had reached inside my ribs and twisted. I wanted to scream that she didn’t mean it, that she couldn’t just switch off her feelings like a light. I wanted to tell her that everything about me had changed in the last sleepless nights, that I had finally seen what I’d been killing. I wanted to beg, to bargain, to do anything that might bring her back.
Instead my voice came out thin and raw. “Please. We can try. I’ll do anything p>
She looked at me with something like pity and contempt and then she surprised me with a truth that cut deeper than all her quietness. “You always did what was easiest. You kept me as something convenient: at night, in private, unannounced in public. That was your choice. You chose to let things be because it was simpler than being brave. I’m done being the easier choice p>
She picked up her bag with the calm of someone who’d decided her life was no longer negotiable. I felt something inside me loosen and fall not just pain but a cold understanding of my own failure. I clutched at her hand one last time, ridiculous and pleading, my pride bleeding away.
“Please,” I said like I was praying. “Don’t make this the end p>
Her hand slid from mine with the finality of a slammed door. Her face was unreadable as she stepped back.
I never begged anyone in my life. Not once. Not as a boy, not as an Alpha, not as a man who’d broken bones with his bare hands. But here I was, on my knees in every way that mattered, staring at the only woman who’d ever owned me, watching her slip away like water through my fingers.
“Elodie, please,” I rasped, my throat burning. “I know I fucked everything up. If you forgive me, just once, we can leave tonight. We’ll go home, we’ll get married tomorrow. No more secrets, no more hiding what we are. Work, don’t work, I don’t care. Everything I have is yours. Every part of me is yours. No one else matters. Not Carmela, not anyone. I’ll never hurt you again. Just give me one more chance. Please. Don’t throw away what we built p>
My voice cracked. God, I hated how desperate it sounded. But it was the truth. Nine years. Nine years of us burned to the ground because I’d been too blind, too damn arrogant to hold on the way I should have.
Her eyes didn’t soften. Once, those words would have undone her. I’d seen her melt under less. But now… her face was stone. Her heart was gone, calcified, buried.
She pulled her hand out of mine like it was nothing. “Listen to me, Calhoun. We’re finished. I’m giving you exactly what you always wanted p>
The words sliced through me like knives dipped in ice.
She kept going. “Do you remember our deal? You said when the one you truly loved came back, I’d step aside. And when Carmela returned, I hoped, God help me, I actually hoped, you might choose me. But you didn’t. You showed me exactly where I stand. And I won’t forget it p>
My vision blurred. My chest felt like it had been split open with claws. I shook my head so hard I thought it might roll off. “No. No, Elodie, don’t say that. Don’t walk away from me.” My voice broke. “I made a mistake, a terrible mistake. Just give me one chance to fix it. One. I’ll burn the world down for you. Please, Elodie p>
Her silence was worse than a slap. She stood there, watching me crumble, then turned with her shoulders straight, like she was carrying the last coffin nail of what we had.
And she left.
She didn’t look back.
Not once.
The door closed behind her and with it, every scrap of light I had left. My chest caved in. It was more than heartbreak, it was murder in slow motion. She killed me without touching me, and I knew she’d keep walking as if I was nothing but dust in her rearview.
I wanted to howl. To rip through that bistro with claws and teeth until nothing but wreckage remained. To drag her back, to make her see that I was hers and she was mine.
But I sat there instead, trembling like some broken animal, my palms slick with sweat, my face wet for the first time since I was a child.