Claimed by My Bestie's Alpha Daddy novel Chapter 90

But logic did nothing to calm the twisting in my gut. I felt exposed.

Violated. Like she had peeled away every layer l’d so carefully built. I wrapped my arms around myself, biting the inside of my cheek until l tasted blood. My vision blurred. I didn’t want to cry. Not here, not in front of them.

“Even if she can’t release it without consequence,” I whispered, “she still read it. She knows everything.”

Richard stopped pacing. He looked at me, eyes sharp and focused. ” Then we stop letting her dictate what happens next. We control what we want, not what we fear.”

There was something steadying in the way he said it. Grounding. Like he was anchoring me, pulling me back from a cliff I hadn’t realized I was standing on the edge of. I looked at him and saw not just the King, but the man who had stood at my side through storm after storm. The man I had wanted long before I understood what that wanting meant.

He crossed the room slowly, his voice quieter now, steadier.

“You are not your secrets, Amelia. And you are not powerless.”

That cracked something in me. A fissure, small but deep. I nodded, swallowing down the tears I didn’t want to shed in front of everyone.

But my shoulders trembled with the effort.

Nathan and Emma quietly excused themselves, giving us space without making a show of it. I barely registered the click of the door closing. Richard reached for my hand, tentative at first. I let him take it.

We didn’t talk for a long time. He sat beside me on the edge of the couch, our hands clasped together, breaths gradually syncing. The silence didn’t feel awkward. It felt necessary.

“I used to imagine you reading it,” I said eventually. My voice was hoarse. “Not like this. But finding it one day. Knowing. I think part ofme wanted you to. Someday.”

He smiled faintly. The kind of smile that made me ache. It made something inside me unravel.

We didn’t make some big decision or map out a war plan. Instead, he led me back to his suite. Not like the other nights. Not in hiding, not in fear. Just the two of us. Nothing to prove, nothing to hide.

In the warmth of his room, with the door locked and the lights dimmed, I sat on his bed and took a slow breath. The weight of everything pressed on me, but his presence eased it just enough to keep breathing.

“Can I stay?” I asked

He looked surprised, then nodded. “Of course.”

I stripped down to the oversized shirt 1 kept in his drawer now and slid beneath the covers. He changed quickly, joining me a moment later, and lay on his side facing me. The space between us disappeared slowly, piece by piece.

“You still trust me?” he asked softly.

“More than I trust myself.”

He kissed me then. Soft and reverent. No flashbulbs, no chaos. Just lips and breath and the warmth of skin. It felt like exhaling after holding it in for years.

It started as a kiss, then another. Hands tangling and fingers threading through hair. The weight of his body above mine. The sharp inhale when his palm found the curve of my hip. My thighs parting, breath hitching. His mouth trailing down my neck. The low hum in my chest that was maybe the sound of my wolf stirring.

We moved slowly. Like we had finally found something steady to lean into. Something worth holding. Something we were building, moment. by moment.

He murmured my name like he just wanted to feel it on his lips.! pressed my forehead to his and whispered his right back.

And when we fell apart together, gasping in the dark, it wasn’t desperation. It was something else. Something softer. Something whole.

Sometimes I wonder if Jenny likes having me around because it makes her feel powerful. That helping me makes her feel like a hero instead of a person.”. She snapped the book closed. “You thought I was fake.

Everything I did for you, every ounce of care, and you sat in your bed writing down how manipulative I must be.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said, my voice catching. “You don’t understand what I was going through.”

“No, I think I understand just fine,” she said. “You showed up at my door with nothing, and I opened it. I told everyone to give you a chance.

I made room for you in places I didn’t even have space for myself. And now what do I get? Pages of insults and paranoia, because you never trusted me to begin with.”

She tossed the journal to the ground between us. The pages splayed across the stones like scattered feathers.

“You came into my life like some stray I was supposed to rescue, and then you just kept taking. You took my friends. You took Adam. And now you’ve taken him.”

I took a step back. “Jenny, this isn’t what you think.”

“Richard looks at me like he already knows. Like he sees past everything I try to hide.'” She quoted it from memory this time. No book. Just rage. “You wanted him. You say you didn’t mean to, but it’s all over those pages. Every fantasy, every flutter of guilt, every time you let yourself get close. You wanted him while you were still under his roof. While you were still pretending to be my friend.”

“I didn’t know what | felt,” I said. “I was confused. I never acted on it.”

“That’s a lie. Maybe you didn’t kiss him when we were teenagers, but you wanted to. And eventually, you did. You did everything. And now he’s yours.”Her voice rose until it broke. “He was mine. He was my dad. And now he’s looking at you like he wants to give you everything he never gave me.”