Page 47 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

“Be precise?”

“Make everything a joke.”

That cooled me right through. I looked up at him properly. “But that’s it, Damien, I’m not joking.”

He shifted, glancing toward the professor, toward the students pretending not to watch. “I was worried about you.”

“You were angry that I caught you.”

“I was both.”

“Very convenient. In fact, it’s a full emotional buffet.”

“Marli.”

“Don’t.” It came out quietly enough that his expression changed. Good.

“You told me we weren’t exclusive,” I said. “You said it in public, in front of another girl, while I was going into heat. Then you called me a bitch because you thought I might be with alphas.”

His face flushed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No.”

“I was scared.”

“No,” I said again. “You were ashamed, and jealous, and you tried to hand it to me.”

“I went looking for you,” he said.

“You watched me leave. But chose to stay with what’s her name?”

He stared at me. I saw the boy under the pretty jock performance. The beta who wanted so badly to be bigger than old wounds. The son of an omega who’d left him. The child who’d learned too early that alphas with money could rearrange a family.

I felt sorry for him. But that wasn’t the same as taking him back.

“We’re over,” I said.

His mouth opened.

“No,” I said. “Not on a break. And it’s not complicated. I’m not waiting for you to decide which version of faithful you prefer. I’m one and done. Over. So there you go. You got what you wanted. Non-exclusivity.”

The lecture hall had gone very quiet around us. Even the professor coughed into his fist and turned to the board with heroic cowardice.

Damien’s eyes flashed. “Is this because of them?”

My blood went cold.

“Them?”

“Whoever you were with. Because you had to be with someone, or more.”

“This is because of you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Oh my God, listen to yourself. You cheated. How else will you accept that this was on you? You failed me.”

“Was it more than one of them?”