They Called Me a Homewrecker——Then Three Wolves Refused to Let Me Go

POV: Ivy

For several seconds, I forgot there were other people in the country club.

Ace stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking far too composed for a man who had woken up that morning in a hotel bed without the woman he'd slept with.

His gaze settled on me.

Recognition warmed it.

So did amusement.

"It's nice to meet you, Ivy."

The bastard.

"You too," I managed.

Chloe didn't notice the tension. She was busy accepting champagne from a waiter while her mother fielded questions from pack elders about Sarah and Dean's engagement—assuring everyone that the alliance was strong and the scandal was merely a "misunderstanding."

That word had been used at least twelve times tonight.

Misunderstanding.

As if Dean's six-month double life were a simple scheduling conflict.

I caught Ace's eye and tipped my head toward a side corridor.

He raised one brow.

I walked away before he could refuse.

The hallway behind the ballroom was dim and quiet, lined with oil paintings of dead Vale ancestors who looked judgmental enough to belong in the room we had just left.

I paced once.

Twice.

The door opened.

Ace stepped inside and let it close behind him.

He leaned against the wall.

"You ran out before breakfast."

"We need to forget last night."

His expression changed.

Not dramatically. Ace didn't seem like a man who wasted emotion where other people could see it.

But the faint amusement disappeared.

"Why?"

"Because it was a mistake."

He went still.

I pushed on before I lost my nerve.

"I am currently the center of a massive pack scandal. Chloe stuck her neck out to bring me here tonight. If people find out I slept with her stepbrother—the future Alpha of the Vale Pack—they won't just call me a homewrecker. They'll call me a climber, and they'll drag Chloe's family into my mess."

Ace's jaw tightened.

"Dean lied to you. Stop carrying his shame."

"This isn't about Dean."

"No?"

"It's about me not becoming the woman who blows up Chloe's reputation by association."

Ace pushed off the wall.

He came closer, stopping before his body touched mine.

"Sleeping with me didn't betray Chloe."

"You don't know that."

"I know exactly that."

The certainty in his voice irritated me.

"You are her stepbrother."

"We met as adults."

"That is not the point."

"Then tell me the point."

I folded my arms to keep from reaching for him.

His scent was worse in a narrow hallway. Pine, rain, something warm beneath it that made my Omega pace under my skin.

"The point is that last night cannot happen again."

Ace's eyes dropped briefly to my mouth.

"Was it a mistake before you learned my name?"

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

I remembered the booth. The water. The way he made me say what I wanted before he touched me. The way he kept asking until I was sober enough to be certain.

I remembered wanting him without knowing anything except the shape of his mouth and the way my body quieted when he looked at me.

No.

It had not felt like a mistake.

That was exactly why I was terrified.

Ace read the answer on my face.

"That's what I thought."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like because I wanted you once, I owe you an encore."

His eyes hardened.

"I never said you owed me anything."

The rebuke was quiet, and I felt it immediately.

He was right.

Whatever else this was, Ace had been more careful with my choices than anyone else in my life that week.

I looked away.

"I still need this to stop."

He watched me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

"Fine."

The easy agreement hurt more than I expected.

He opened the door.

"Ace."

He looked back.

I had no idea what I meant to say.

Sorry?

Thank you?

Please don't actually forget?

All three were terrible options.

He waited.

I said nothing.

His mouth flattened, and he walked back into the ballroom.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

My pulse took far too long to settle.

"There you are."

I jumped.

Chloe rounded the corner holding two glasses of champagne.

For one sick second, I was sure she had seen him leave.

"I thought you got lost looking for the restroom," she said.

"Just needed quiet."

She handed me a glass and leaned against the wall beside me.

I studied her profile.

Her makeup was perfect, but exhaustion sat underneath it. She had spent hours pretending to support a political alliance she despised, while her mother paraded her in front of eligible Alphas to prove the Vale family wasn't tainted by the scandal.

"Can I tell you something awful?" she asked.

My stomach tightened.

"Always."

She stared toward the ballroom doors.

"I'm in love with Ace."

The stem of my champagne flute almost slipped between my fingers.

"What?"

"Ace." Her voice dropped. "I've been in love with him for three years."

My skin went cold.

"Chloe, he's your brother."

"Stepbrother," she corrected. "And before you say it, no, we didn't grow up together. My mom married his dad after I was already in college. We met as adults."

She gave a miserable little laugh.

"I know how it sounds. That's why I never did anything about it. The elders would turn it into a scandal. My mother would lose her mind. His father would act like I had tried to burn down the family name."

I couldn't seem to get enough air.

"Does Ace know?"

"God, no."

That answer should have relieved me.

It didn't.

Chloe stared into her champagne.

"That's why I hate watching Sarah cling to Dean," she whispered. "Our families want us to make perfect alliances. My mother keeps saying I need to learn from Sarah's 'grace' and find my own Alpha to marry. I figured if I just kept my mouth shut and committed to a life that made sense, I'd get over the one thing I couldn't have."

She swallowed.

"But watching Sarah swallow his cheating just to keep the ring... it makes me sick. Everyone has a solution for how she should fix it, except the obvious one."

"Which is?"

"To admit she doesn't actually want him."

The honesty in her voice broke something open in me.

Chloe was being pressured, suffocated, and asked to preserve everyone else's comfort while burying her own feelings.

I knew exactly what that felt like.

She set down her drink and rested her head on my shoulder.

"You're the only person I've told about Ace."

Guilt hit so hard my knees weakened.

"Please don't think I'm disgusting," she whispered.

I wrapped my arms around her.

"I don't."

That part was true.

The lie was everything I didn't say next.

I didn't tell her that the man she had loved in silence for three years had spent the previous night in my bed.

I didn't tell her that I could still feel his mouth on mine.

And when she held me tighter, trusting me with the secret she had never told another person, I understood exactly why Ace had looked angry when I called last night a mistake.

I wasn't trying to protect Chloe from something that had already happened.

I was trying to protect myself from what telling her would cost me.

That realization followed me back into the ballroom.

So did one more.

If I wanted to keep my best friend, Ace could never happen again.