Chapter 19 The Confrontation

Alpha Sebastian and Serena both stiffened when they saw Eira.

Serena slipped her arm from his—but not before Natalie clocked the luxury bags hanging from his other hand.

Natalie gave them a polished smile. "Alpha Hale. And you must be Hale Pack’s Luna."

For half a second, Serena said nothing. Her smile stayed perfectly in place, but her eyes cut to Eira, waiting to see what she’d do.

"No," Alpha Sebastian said.

He looked directly at Eira as he said it.

Serena’s fingers tightened around her purse strap before she recovered. "Sebastian and I grew up together," she said lightly. "He was just helping me pick out a few things for my new place."

Natalie and Kate exchanged a quick glance. They worked around powerful people for a living. They knew an explanation that arrived before anyone asked for one.

Serena turned to Eira, warm as spring. "Eira. What a surprise. You walked right past us like we were strangers."

Eira looked at Alpha Sebastian.

He’d denied Serena was his Luna—but he still hadn’t said who actually held the title. Four years of marriage, and even now the truth was too inconvenient to say out loud.

"I hope you’re not getting the wrong impression," Serena went on. "This was just a quick shopping trip."

"Of course." Eira’s gaze dropped, unhurried, to the designer bags in Alpha Sebastian’s hand. "He’s always been very generous. With old friends." A beat. "Some of them get penthouses. I got a resignation I have to work out."

Alpha Sebastian’s jaw tightened.

Serena’s smile flickered—just enough.

Natalie glanced between them. "You know Alpha Hale?"

"We’ve met." Eira gave Alpha Sebastian exactly what he’d given her. Nothing more.

He should have been relieved. It was what he’d wanted for four years—no public claim, no awkward questions, no wife attached to his name. Instead, her flat calm got under his skin like a splinter.

Serena tried again, sweeter now, aiming for the audience. "Are you two friends of Eira’s? That’s sweet. She doesn’t shop at places like this very often—you may need to walk her through it."

The insult came gift-wrapped.

Kate’s expression cooled.

But Eira answered before either of them could. "You’d know, I’m sure. You’ve had a lot of practice lately—learning to shop on someone else’s card." She let her eyes drift, mild, to the bags in Alpha Sebastian’s hand, then back to Serena’s face. "It shows. You wear it well."

Serena’s smile froze at the corners.

"I only meant—"

"I know what you meant." Eira’s voice didn’t rise. It didn’t have to. "You wanted these two to picture me lost in a boutique. Instead they’re wondering why a grown man is carrying another woman’s bags at ten in the morning." A pause, gentle as a blade laid flat. "You should be careful what pictures you paint, Serena. People finish them."

For the first time, Serena had nothing polished ready.

Natalie stepped in, smooth, and linked her arm through Eira’s. "She’s doing just fine. And she’s here with us."

Kate took Eira’s other arm. "We have a fitting. Enjoy your morning."

They turned toward the fitting rooms.

"Eira."

Alpha Sebastian stepped forward and caught her wrist.

Eira stopped. She looked down at his hand, then up at him. "Let go."

His grip tightened instead. "We need to talk."

"Then use your words, Alpha Hale."

The title put more distance between them than shouting ever could.

Natalie stepped forward. "She said let go."

Shoppers had started to look. A woman near the display cases had already lifted her phone, angling it with the fake casualness of someone filming. Alpha Sebastian caught the movement—Alpha of Hale Pack, holding a woman by the wrist on a boutique floor. His grip loosened just enough for Eira to twist free.

"This is private," he said, lower now.

"Nothing about grabbing me in public is private." She nodded toward a quiet alcove near the fitting rooms. "You have two minutes. They stay where they can see me."

She walked there on her own. Alpha Sebastian followed.

Natalie and Kate held position a few yards off, close enough to step in. Behind her shopping bag, Kate opened the Sterling executive chat.

Kate: Alpha Hale grabbed Miss Crawford on the floor. She got free but he’s pulled her aside. We still have eyes on her. Someone had a phone up. Want mall security?

At his desk, Miles read it.

Eira and Alpha Sebastian were still legally married. That gave Alpha Hale no right to grab her or pull her off a company assignment—and it didn’t make the situation any less volatile. He forwarded the message to Alpha Killian without a word of his own.

Inside Sterling Tower, Alpha Killian’s phone lit up.

He read the message once. Then he was already moving—phone to his ear, jacket left on the chair.

"Lila." No greeting.

"The boutique on the Sterling concourse. Now."

--

In the alcove, Eira folded her arms. "You wanted two minutes. Start talking."

"Why did you call me that?" Alpha Sebastian demanded.

"It’s business hours. You’re the Alpha of Hale Pack. I work for Sterling Group. What else would I call you?" Her eyes stayed level. "Last night I was only Miss Crawford to you. Funny how the title matters now that there’s an audience."

"So that’s what this is about."

He reached for her shoulder. Eira stepped back before he could touch her. "Keep your hands to yourself."

His jaw flexed. "I wasn’t trying to hide our marriage."

"No?" Cool, even. "You had a room full of witnesses and still couldn’t get the word wife past your teeth. She managed childhood friend three times. You managed nothing."

"My position makes this complicated. I’m the CEO of Hale Group. You’re playing assistant to another man."

"And somehow that embarrasses you more than carrying your mistress’s shopping bags in the middle of a mall."

"She is not my mistress."

"Right. You just buy all your childhood friends penthouses and let them sleep in your wife’s bed." She watched him. "Tell me which part of that you’d like to say a little louder."

His face darkened. "You know how people talk about CEOs and their assistants. I won’t have my wife turned into office gossip."

There it was. Not concern for her. Concern for how her job made him look.

"So now I’m your wife." Eira almost smiled. "You couldn’t say the word ten feet away, but back here, where no one can hear it, it comes out fine. That’s the whole marriage, Alpha Sebastian. In public I don’t exist. In private I’m supposed to obey."

"I’m asking you to come home." His voice dropped. "Quit Sterling. Stop this. We can start a family."

She stared at him. "Now you want pups."

"That was before."

"Before what?"

"This is different."

"What changed?" She studied his face like a page she’d already read. "Four years you told me you never wanted them. Not with me. Now Serena moves into my house and suddenly you want to be a father." A beat landed clean. "Or is it that you need a Luna who’ll give Hale Pack an heir, and you’ve finally decided which of us is which?"

A flash of panic crossed his eyes—there and gone. But she’d seen it.

"Eira."

"Don’t."

"Don’t what?"

"Don’t say my name like you still have the right to."

For a second, neither spoke. Then his suspicion surfaced, uglier than before.

"You didn’t come home last night. Where were you?"

Eira almost laughed. The sheer nerve of it.

He had slept with Serena in their bed. And now he stood in a boutique alcove, jaw tight, demanding to know where she had spent the night.

"Careful, Alpha Hale." Her voice went quiet—the quiet that ends things. "You’re a man holding another woman’s shopping bags, asking his wife where she slept. Think about how that sentence sounds before you finish it."

Alpha Sebastian’s mouth opened. Closed.

For once, he had no idea which of them was supposed to be ashamed.