Page 2 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“It is for me.”

She closed her eyes for half a second, likely asking God for patience and maybe a daughter with softer edges.

Tessa pulled away from Grant and saw me.

Her face lit with nervous joy. Real joy, which was inconvenient. It would have been easier if she looked smug. Cruel. Even guilty. Instead, she looked like my baby sister in a white sundress, flushed with love and panic, desperate for me to forgive her before anyone had to name what she had done.

“Cassie!” She hurried toward me, arms open.

I braced myself. Tessa hugged like she meant it. That had always been the problem. She could hurt you and still mean the hug. She could cry on your shoulder about the consequences of her own choices and somehow leave damp spots that made you feel guilty.

“I’m so glad you came,” she whispered.

I stared over her shoulder at Grant. He was watching me. Not Tessa. Me. His eyes moved over my face, my dress, the line of my throat. Slow enough that I knew he wanted me to notice. Careful enough that no one else would.

My stomach tightened.

“I said I would,” I told Tessa.

She pulled back and searched my expression. “Are you okay?”

No, I thought. I am standing on a private island about to spend four days celebrating your union with the man who was still sleeping in my bed when he started sleeping in yours.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Tessa smiled too fast. “Good. I know this is strange.”

“Strange is one word.”

Her smile trembled. “Cassie.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

That was apparently the correct answer, because her shoulders dropped with relief. She caught my hand and squeezed. The diamond on her ring finger flashed hard enough to be rude.

“Thank you,” she said.

I looked at the ring. Grant had bought it six months after telling me he needed to delay moving in together because he was trying to be financially responsible.

The center stone was enormous.

So responsibility had healed.

Grant arrived behind her and slid one hand around Tessa’s waist. I remembered that hand. The weight of it. The casual claim. Grant had always touched women in ways designed for an audience. Waist. Lower back. Neck if he wanted to look hungry. Fingers threaded when he wanted to look safe.

“Cass,” he said.

He had lost the right to call me that around the time he lost track of whose underwear was in his overnight bag.

“Grant.”

His smile widened.

At thirty-nine, Grant still looked good in the way selfish men often did. Rested. Fed. Moisturized by the emotional distress of every woman who had ever mistaken his attention for depth. His linen shirt was open at the throat. His hairline looked newly confident, which meant science had joined the wedding party.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

Tessa beamed, because she thought it was generous.