Chapter 0028
Alexander
It was hard to focus on Sophia with the low hum of tension filling the air from the two little bodies next to me. My eyes slithered to them, like two puffed up pupples as soon as Sphia appeared. I almost smirked. They had the same furrowed face.
“What bring you here, love,” I said, trying to hide my suspicion.
“Oh please,” she hummed, “I couldn’t live with myself with things so tense between my baby and I!” Sophia’s smile was too wide, too rehearsed, as she pulled a wrapped gift out of her purse and held it infron of Owen.
I could already feel my jaw tightening, but I kept it in check
Sophia’s voice pet the air, her eyes on my boy. “Mommy knows she was wrong to tear up your drawing. I’ve bought you a present to apologize,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet as she offered the gift to Owen, expecting him to just fall in line.
But Owen just stared at the gift, his eyes blank. He didn’t want it. He didn’t need it. His gaze shifted toward me, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of something in his eyes.
Maybe it was just my imagination, but I swore for a second that he was silently telling me that it wasn’t the gift he didn’t care for, it was her.
Abigail spoke before I could even think about responding. He says he doesn’t like this gift.” She said it flatly, matter–of–fact, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
I raised an eyebrow, genuinely impressed. Not by her ability to speak for Owen, but by the fact that she didn’t back down. That was a trait I respected.
I almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. But then Abigail turned her head slightly, as if checking to make sure she had my attention, and said, “I can hear Owen’s thoughts.”
My gaze flickered to her. She didn’t seem like she was joking, and that stopped me cold. There was something in her voice- something dead serious–that made me wonder just how much she could actually hear. And that wasn’t the only thing that made me pause.
The wolf inside me growled, a quiet, dangerous sound. I like this child. She’s just like Owen.
I was tempted to agree. There was a sharpness in Abigail that mirrored Owen’s, and I found myself respecting her more with each passing second. She wasn’t just another kid She had the kind of mind that cut through the crap, that saw things as they were and didn’t flinch. She didn’t try to sugarcoat things. And that was something I could understand.
Sophia, on the other hand, was a different story. She clung to me, her hand finding its way to my arm like she was a vine trying to choke the life out of me. I could feel her breath against my skin, the way she leaned into me like I was her safety net.
I shifted slightly, stepping away from her touch, sighing. I already knew another argument was coming.
Sophia let out a frustrated breath and dropped her hand, her eyes narrowing. “What’s wrong with you, Alexander?” she hissed. “Why are you pushing me away like this?”
“I’m not,” I said firmly. “I’m just standing.”
Instead, I looked over at Owen, who was still staring at the gift Sophia had given him like it was the most foreign thing in the world. He didn’t want it. I could see that much. And yet, I couldn’t help but hope that, somehow, he
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would warm up to hier. That maybe just maybe he would see her as a mother figure, like he was supposed to.
But that wasn’t going to happen. Not today,
Sophia wasn’t a mother to him. She was just a woman who wanted to be in my life, one I never had the intention of fully marrying or having more children with. Not after this train wreck.
The amusement park was supposed to be a distraction. It was supposed to be fun, a break from the weight of everything that had been happening. But all it did was remind me of how much I’d messed up. How much I’d screwed things up with Lauren.
And now, here I was, stuck between the woman I had never stopped loving, and the woman I had allowed myself to be with for all the wrong reasons.
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Roberson0029
