THE BIKER ALPHA WHO BECAME MY SECOND CHANCE MATE novel Chapter 4

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Chapter 3

This can't be happening.

Not now. Not after everything I've just escaped from. Not when I'm finally free, finally breathing again, finally remembering what it feels like to make my own choices.

But there he is. Tristan Hayes. The man I spent two years trying to forget. The man who taught me that love could be gentle before Daxon taught me it could be violent.

Wow! He's still so hurt, I hear Claire, my wolf, say.

I raise a brow. So she's still here? I'd forgotten about her existence.

Isn't he so hot? she says with the most sheepish voice I've ever heard from her.

That's not what matters now, we need to stay away from him. I say, pushing her down.

Then I let myself look at him. Really look at him. Even after five years, Tristan Hayes is impossible to miss. He's taller than I remembered, broader through the shoulders, his dark hair longer and wilder than the neat style he used to wear.

He's aged like fine wine. It looks like he hasn't aged a single day. He looks nothing like a thirty-five-year-old man.

He's scanning the crowd, those dark eyes I once knew better than my own searching for someone. For me. His jaw is tighter than I remember, his shoulders broader, but it's still him. Still the man who held me while I cried over my parents' deaths. Still the man who walked away when I needed him most.

I should run. Hide in the bathroom until he gives up and leaves. Text Orion that I made a mistake, that I'm not ready to come home after all.

But I can't move. I'm frozen in place, watching him search for me, watching the exact moment his eyes find mine across the terminal.

The world stops.

Everything stops. The noise, the chaos, the constant motion of people rushing past. For just a moment, it's five years ago and we're twenty-five again, and he's looking at me like I'm the only person who matters in the entire world.

Then reality crashes back in.

He starts walking toward me, and I can see the questions in his eyes. Questions I'm not ready to answer. Questions about where I've been, what I've been doing, why I look like a ghost of the woman he used to know.

"Athena." My name on his lips sounds like a prayer. Like he's not sure I'm real.

"Tristan." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I wasn't expecting... Orion......"

"I told him to go with Sarah." His eyes are searching my face, cataloging every change, every new scar. "I was free, so I volunteered."

Of course he did. Of course, after five years of silence, this is how I come home. Running straight into the arms of the man who broke my heart before I even knew what heartbreak was.

"You look..." He stops, shakes his head. "You look tired."

Tired. That's one way to put it. I look like I've been through a war. Because I have been. A war with myself, with my choices, with a man who tried to erase everything I used to be.

"It's been a long flight," I say, because it's easier than the truth.

He nods, but I can see he doesn't believe me. Tristan always could read me like a book. It used to be one of the things I loved most about him. Now it terrifies me.

"Come on," he says, reaching for my suitcase. "Let's get you home."

Home. The word hits me like a physical blow. I don't even know what that means anymore. The apartment in London was never home. The pack house was never home. Home was... home was before. Before my parents died. Before I made the worst decisions of my life. Before I learned that love was supposed to hurt.

We walk toward the exit in silence, and I can feel him stealing glances at me. Taking in the way I flinch when someone gets too close. The way I keep my head down, my shoulders hunched. The way I've learned to make myself invisible.

This isn't how I wanted to come home. Broken, defeated, with my tail between my legs. I wanted to come back triumphant, successful, with stories of my amazing life in London. Instead, I'm running away from a nightmare I created for myself.

The terminal is too bright, too loud, too full of people. Every sound makes me jump. Every sudden movement sends my heart racing. I hate that I've become this person. This scared, broken thing that jumps at shadows.