Chapter 211 The Terms

Eira pushed open the café door, and the bell above it gave a soft chime.

Only a few customers sat downstairs. A barista glanced up from the register.

"Hi. Are you meeting someone?"

"Sebastian Hale."

The barista nodded toward the staircase. "He’s upstairs."

Alpha Sebastian had reserved the entire upstairs room for the morning.

Eira climbed the stairs and found him waiting by the window, in the same corner where he had proposed four years ago.

He stood the moment he saw her.

His charcoal suit fit perfectly, his hair was neatly combed back, and a familiar smile settled across his face. He looked ready for a board meeting or a formal fundraiser.

But his lips were pale, and dark circles shadowed his eyes.

The legal notice had clearly shaken him. His stomach could not have recovered that quickly.

Two identical lattes sat on the table.

"Eira." He pulled out a chair. "Please, sit down."

Eira sat but left the latte untouched.

Alpha Sebastian glanced at the cup. "You’re not going to drink it?"

"I don’t take anything from the Hales." She held his gaze. "Isabella spiked my drink once. Or did you forget?"

Shame flickered across his face.

He had not forgotten. Isabella had betrayed Eira. Serena had betrayed her too. And he had stood by and let both of them get away with it.

That made him just as guilty.

"I would never do that to you."

"You don’t get to ask me to trust you anymore."

The words hit him harder than he expected.

Eira kept her chair angled away from him. She did not touch the latte, the table, or anything else Alpha Sebastian had handled. Every small rejection scraped against his nerves.

"Let’s cut to the chase," she said. "You want me to drop my claim to the marital assets."

"No."

"Then why am I here?"

Alpha Sebastian unlocked his phone and turned it toward her.

The first photo showed Sam standing outside a run-down house in an oversized coat. His cheeks were red from the cold, and the skin around his knuckles was cracked. In the second photo, he wore new clothes, but he still looked thin, tired, and wary.

"His relatives are struggling," Alpha Sebastian said. "Six people are sharing a small rental in one of the poorest border Packs. They already have three children in school. Sam wasn’t enrolled. They had him working instead."

Eira stared at the screen.

Two years ago, Sam had been safe at the group home. He had warm clothes, regular meals, and adults who knew how to care for him.

Now he looked completely alone.

"I paid for a place at a boarding school," Alpha Sebastian continued. "I spoke to the headmaster myself. He’ll have food, medical care, and a proper education. I also found his relatives a better place to live."

Eira slowly raised her eyes. "And what do you want in return?"

Alpha Sebastian’s silence answered her before he spoke.

"I want us to keep the divorce private."

Her expression hardened.

""To the business world and the Packs, we’re still together.Privately, I won’t ask you to come home or act like my wife."

"You want me to pretend we’re still married."

"I want time."

"You want protection for your company."

Alpha Sebastian did not deny it.

Eira gave a cold laugh. "And Sam is the price."

"If you want to stay involved in his life, you need to keep your connection to me public."

"You’re holding a child over my head and calling it a marriage."

"I’m trying to make sure he’s safe."

"You had two years to do that. You only found him when you needed leverage."

The color drained from Alpha Sebastian’s face.

Eira pushed his phone back across the table.

"Give me the name of Sam’s school, his legal guardian, and the social worker assigned to his case. If he’s being neglected, I’ll handle it through the proper legal channels."

"You won’t be able to reach him that way."

For the first time, Eira’s carefully controlled expression cracked.

"There’s one more condition."

She turned her head slightly. "Say it."

"Come to dinner with me tonight."

Eira’s eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Snowmark’s lead negotiator expects me to bring my Luna. If the divorce becomes public before the deal closes, they may walk away."

She understood immediately.

"So you need me to stand beside you while you close the deal."

"I need you there for one night."

"No. You need my name, my reputation, and the work I did for Hale Group."

"That’s not what I meant."

"It’s exactly what you meant."

Alpha Sebastian’s jaw tightened. "Eira, I do care about you. I wouldn’t be asking if I had another option."

"You always have another option. You just keep choosing the one that hurts me."

She stood, slipped on her coat, and fastened each button with steady fingers.

"You used my work to build your company, spent our money on Serena, and now you want me to help save your deal."

Alpha Sebastian said nothing.

"So this is what you call love?"

The question stopped him cold.

She did not wait for an answer.

"Sebastian, you make me sick."

"I know," Alpha Sebastian said, lowering his eyes.

He had known from the moment he decided to use Sam as leverage. Whatever happened next, Eira would hate him even more.

But he felt trapped. He could not let the Hale Pack become a pawn in someone else’s power struggle. He also refused to spend the next two years silenced by a noncompete agreement.

He had been backed into a corner. One more mistake could bring everything down.

"Eira, I don’t want things to end like this." He looked up at her, his expression almost pleading. "Can’t you give me a little more time? Just out of respect for what we had?"

She stared at him.

"When you were sleeping with Serena, were you showing any respect for our marriage?"

Alpha Sebastian had no answer.

Eira picked up her coat and walked out.

"Six-thirty tonight," he called after her. "I’ll pick you up at Number Nine."

She did not turn around.

Alpha Sebastian watched her disappear down the stairs. He knew she would come, but not because she still cared about him.

She would come for Sam.