My Love Inappropriate. Her Scandal Take the Blame. Get Lost, Uncle! I Married the Mad Alpha! Chapter 01

My Love Inappropriate. Her Scandal Take the Blame. Get Lost, Uncle! I Married the Mad Alpha! Chapter 01

Five years after I married the notorious half-Italian, half-Belgian madman of an Alpha, news reached me from New York that Adrian Carter was dead.

The transatlantic call arrived at five in the morning.

“Irene, Mr. Carter has passed away. The Carter family is in complete chaos. You are the only person who can come back and hold things together for now.”

No one had spoken that name to me in five years. I gripped my phone, unable to react.

As the girl adopted by the Carter family, I had done only two truly reckless things after coming of age.

The first was sleeping with Adrian on a night when he was too drunk to think clearly.

The second was boarding a plane before he woke and secretly accepting the marriage alliance proposed by the Moretti family.

After that, Adrian and I never spoke again, despite the eighteen years he had spent protecting me since taking me off the streets.

I never imagined that when I finally set foot in New York again, it would be to attend his funeral.

On the day of the service, a boy in a tiny black suit tore free from a relative’s grip and ran straight at me.

I caught him on instinct.

A scrape marked his cheek, and he was crying so hard he could barely breathe.

“Mommy, you finally came back! They’re all bad people! They only want to steal everything Daddy left me, and they keep bullying me!”

…

A faint, still-immature cedar scent clung to him, almost identical to Adrian’s.

I stared at the face that looked so much like his father’s and suddenly remembered the year I first met Adrian.

I had been without parents for as long as I could remember, and I had never been officially registered with a pack.

Until I was seven, I lived on the streets near Coney Island, surviving on loose change stolen from tourists’ pockets.

That winter, I slipped a Rolex from the wrist of a young man in an expensive coat, only for him to catch me before I could turn away.

He looked like a powerful, high-ranking Alpha. I should never have dared to steal from him.

But I was starving.

He did not use his Alpha dominance to frighten me, and he did not call the police. Adrian simply crouched in front of me and placed a piece of candy in my palm, red and raw from the cold.

“Irene, I’m sorry I’m so late. I’m Adrian Carter. I was a friend of your parents before they died. From now on, I’ll take care of you as your uncle and legal guardian. I won’t let you be alone again.”

He kept his word.

He attended my parent-teacher conferences, chased away the drunken men who harassed me, and taught me everything from table manners and piano to hiding my nerves at banquets crowded with high-ranking wolves.

He taught me that I no longer had to attack first just to protect myself. He transformed the feral street girl who was always ready to bite into a poised young woman who could carry herself at an Upper East Side gala.

But being only his niece and ward was never enough for me.

I wanted all his patience, all his protection, and every trace of his tenderness for myself. I had even planned to confess what had happened between us on his birthday.

I thought that if he rejected me, I would cling to him the way I used to beg him for candy as a child. I would pester him until he finally gave in.

But before I could say a word, I heard him announce at a Carter family banquet in the Plaza Hotel that he was going to marry Sofia Bennett, sealing an alliance with her family.

Everyone watched me nervously, clearly afraid I would destroy the evening.

This time, I did not make a scene or let a single emotion escape into my scent.

I simply handed Adrian a dark blue velvet box.

Inside lay a pair of rare natural pink diamonds, catching the chandelier light in countless tiny flashes.

My adoptive mother froze when she saw them.

“Irene, those diamonds are worth more than twenty million dollars. Weren’t you planning to have them made into…”

“They were always meant to be a gift for Uncle Adrian,” I interrupted, keeping a polite smile on my face. “Now they’re perfect as Sofia’s engagement gift.”

Adrian frowned.

His cedar scent instantly turned heavy, and a wave of Alpha dominance pressed down on everyone around him before he forced it back under control.

“Irene, you were younger then. No matter how badly you behaved, I was willing to indulge you. But Sofia will soon be my mate under pack law. You cannot keep targeting her the way you used to.”

My nails dug into my palms, but I kept smiling and nodded.

“You’re right. I’ll remember that.”

He stared at me as if he sensed something was wrong.

Then his phone rang. Sofia was urging him to meet her at Rockefeller Center to watch the fireworks.

Adrian picked up his coat and walked to the door, only to turn back and look at me.

“Irene, do you want to come with us?”

I shook my head, keeping my voice light.

“No. Go ahead. Have fun with your future mate.”

He studied me for two seconds, then left without another word.