Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy Chapter 310

JASON

"The months we spent together — before the restoration. The conversations. The time in the greenhouse, the late shifts when you'd come find me after a difficult case. The way you'd tell me things you didn't tell other people." I held her gaze. "Were those real? Or were they just — were they filling space that something else had vacated?"

I watched her face as she considered the question. Watched her give it the honest consideration it deserved rather than giving me an answer that would be merciful to hear.

"Both," she said finally. "And I know that's not as clean as you'd want it to be. But both is the honest answer. They were real — you're someone I genuinely wanted to know, someone I respected and liked and found interesting in ways that had nothing to do with whatever I wasn't accessing about Kael. That part was real." She paused. "But there was also something in me that was looking for — for connection. For something solid to hold onto in a life that had gaps in it I could feel even when I couldn't identify them. And you were there, and you were steady, and it was easy to let more develop than I was ready for."

"You were using me to fill a hole you couldn't see," I said. Not accusatory, just naming it.

"Partly," she said. "I don't think it was only that. I think it was also genuinely you. But partly yes." She met my eyes steadily. "That's the honest version and I think you deserve the honest version."

I did. That was the thing about Ivory that had drawn me in from the beginning — this absolute, almost uncomfortable commitment to saying the accurate thing no matter what even when the comfortable thing was available. I had realized why the entire packhings on her words when she said something, she never backed down from the truth no matter how raw it was, and she didn't try to dissolve herself from anything. If she was wrong, she was wrong and would acknowledge it.

She didn't soften truth to protect you from it. She trusted you to handle truth, which was its own kind of respect.

"Alright," I said.

"Alright?" she repeated, and her expression was cautious, like she had been expecting more than that. Anger that would probably be justified or shouting.

"I appreciate the honesty," I said. "I'm not going to tell you it doesn't land — it does. But I'd rather have the honest version than the comfortable one." I sat back. "So where does that leave us?"

She seemed to relax a bit seeing this as she exhaled. Like she'd been braced for a worse response and was recalibrating.

"I don't know yet," she said. "I'd like — I'd like to not lose you. As a friend, if that's something that makes sense. If that's something you can do without it being —" she paused, finding words, "— without it being asking too much."

I thought about it honestly rather than just immediately reassuring her. She deserved it, an honest answer, rather than me just saying yes in the heat of the moment.

The truth was complicated. The truth was that I'd invested more than I was easily able trying to build a relationship with her,And I did not know how to redirect it into the friendship that she was asking for.

The truth was that friendship was theoretically possible but wouldn't be immediately easy.

"I'd like that too," I said. "I'll need some time to get there — not a long time, but some. Right now I'm still sorting through things on my end. But no — I don't want to lose you either."

She nodded, and what moved across her face was something like relief alongside something harder to name. Grief, maybe.

I understood that. I was sitting in the middle of my own version of that cost.

The curtain rustled, in a way that someone was trying to be politely audible before entering. Then it pulled aside and a young woman came through carrying what appeared to be a large canvas bag over each arm, slightly breathless from the load.

Ivory's expression shifted. "Margo," she said. "You didn't need to carry all of that yourself."

"I had help to the door," Margo said, setting both bags down beside the far wall with the care of someone handling something valuable. She was young, and had the particular energy of someone who took her work seriously and found genuine satisfaction in doing it well. Ivory's assistant, formerly the Luna's assistant but Aria had fired her because she had opinions and wasn't hesitant to speak them out.

"I wanted to bring it in myself. Alpha Kael was very specific about how it should be delivered."

Ivory's expression shifted again, surprise on her face as she took in the canvas bag again with more focus this time. "Kael sent this?" The lack of formal title was startling, after hearing her talk about him using his title as a barrier.

"Called me this morning," Margo confirmed, smoothing the front of her uniform with the small self-conscious gesture of someone who'd been slightly flustered by receiving a direct communication from the Alpha and hadn't entirely recovered yet.

"Said he was sending a recovery package and asked me to bring it personally so I could explain what was what."

She began to unpack the bags with careful precision, explaining as she went. Flowers — actual ones, that were actually specific varieties that I noticed corresponded to ones Ivory had mentioned growing in her greenhouse.

A container of what smelled like proper food from the pack's main kitchen rather than the healing bay's more bland menu. Several small practical items: a better pillow than the standard healing bay issue, a particular variety of tea, that showed that the gifts were actually something he put thought into, knowing what she liked, rather than sending a gift bag with random things.

And then the books.

Margo drew them out with the care of someone handling items they'd been told were important, stacking them carefully on the bedside table. They were botanical texts — thick, old-looking volumes with the particular worn quality of books that had been handled a great deal over many years. I watched Ivory's face as she saw them and saw something happen there that was almost painful to witness.

She reached out and touched the top cover before Margo had fully set the stack down, her fingers landing on it with a kind of involuntary certainty, the gesture of someone reaching for something they'd thought they'd lost.

"He said," Margo continued, "that these were the botanical series you'd been looking for at the trade fair, months ago, before you went on your last trip, the ones the sellers had already moved on with before you got back. He said he'd promised he'd find someone to track them down and he didn't want you to think he'd forgotten."