Sante

“He said what?”

The words leave me colder than I intended.

I stand frozen beside the bed, one hand still holding the collar of my nightshirt, unable to move for a full second.

No.

No, I must have heard incorrectly.

Our son would never—

My Darling turns a page calmly.

“He was embarrassed,” he says simply.

Embarrassed.

The room suddenly feels smaller.

A dangerous silence settles beneath my skin, quiet enough that most people would miss it entirely. But my mate knows me too well. He always does.

I stare at him.

At the same Alpha who carried our child for months while the world whispered about him behind closed doors.

The same Alpha who nearly died bringing Dante into this world.

And that child—

That precious child—

Called him a driver.

Something ugly twists slowly inside my chest.

If another person had said such a thing, they would already be ruined.

I have buried companies for less.

But this is Dante.

Our Dante.

And yet—

My blood still turns icy imagining my beloved standing there while our son denied him.

I exhale slowly through my nose.

Dangerously slowly.

I finally move toward the bed, exhaustion dragging at my bones after another endless day of meetings and negotiations and people pretending not to tremble around me.

None of it matters once I am here.

Once I am near him.

I climb onto the bed without dignity and collapse beside him immediately, wrapping my arms around his waist like a starving man finding religion again.

Warm.

Mine.

My face presses against his stomach as I inhale his scent deeply, the familiar Alpha pheromones soothing the violence under my skin little by little.

Still angry.

But calmer.

His fingers slide absently through my hair.

A reward.

Always a reward.

“…Since this son of ours is not good,” I murmur against him, “we can make another.”

Silence.

I tilt my head just enough to look up at him.

Beautiful.

God, he is beautiful.