I Accepted My Alpha’s Rejection While Carrying His Pup Chapter 07

I Accepted My Alpha’s Rejection While Carrying His Pup Chapter 07

Weeks turned into months.

My belly grew. My strength came back. The diner became my whole world.

Grandma and I fell into a rhythm. Up at four. Baking through the breakfast rush. Prepping all afternoon. The regulars learned my name. The mailman started coming in for free pie. A shaggy goat escaped from a nearby farm, wandered into our backyard, and refused to leave. Grandma named her Barbara and pretended to hate her while feeding her apple peels every morning.

Small. Ordinary.

Perfect.

But I couldn’t escape Caspian Thorne.

Not because he chased me. He didn’t.

He just kept… showing up.

At the hardware store when Grandma needed new shelves in the pantry. “My men will install them.” “We don’t need your men.” The next morning, the shelves were up. Perfectly level.

At the farmer’s market, nodding at me across the vegetable stand while he bought fresh rosemary.

At the diner, once a week, for black coffee. Always at the counter. Never sitting. Never staying longer than

ten minutes.

He talked to Grandma more than he talked to me.

But I caught him looking.

Quick glances that moved away the second I noticed. His gold eyes flaring brighter whenever I walked past. Small things. Stepping aside so I could pass. Holding the door without making a big deal of it.

Invisible, if you weren’t paying attention.

I was paying attention.

So was Nova. She paced inside me every time he came in, like a dog waiting at a window.

Then came the Tuesday.

I was in the storage room, reaching for a twenty-pound bag of flour on the top shelf-stupid, because I was sixteen weeks pregnant when a hand appeared above mine and lifted it down like it weighed nothing.

I turned around.

Caspian. Holding the flour against his chest.

“You shouldn’t reach over your head,” he said.

“I’m pregnant, not helpless.”

“You’re short.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“That shelf is seven feet high. You’re five-three.”

“Five-four.”

Something moved in his face. Not a smile. I’d never seen the Lycan King smile. But the ghost of one, hiding at the corner of his mouth.

“Five-four,” he repeated slowly, like he was filing it away somewhere important. “My apologies.”

He set the flour on the counter and turned to leave.

“Wait,” I heard myself say. “Do you want some pie? It’s not as good as Grandma’s, but-”

“I’d like that.”

He sat down at the counter. Actually sat. For the first time.

I cut him a slice of my cinnamon apple and watched him eat it in total silence.

When he finished, he set down his fork.

“It’s better than Rose’s.”

“Liar.”

“I don’t lie Kings can’t afford to.”

I laughed. And his eyes-those burning, unreadable eyes-softened. Like sunrise breaking over cold water.

Then he leaned slightly closer, and I heard it. His heartbeat.

It was racing.

The calm, untouchable Lycan King, whose name made Alphas go pale, was sitting at my counter with his

heart pounding like a teenager’s.

He knew.

He knew exactly what Nova knew. That I smelled like his.

And he hadn’t said a single word about it.

“Caspian,” I said quietly. “Your wolf. Does he-”

“Yes.”

Just that. One word. No pressure behind it. No demand.

“Why haven’t you said anything?”

He stood and put a bill on the counter, even though I’d told him it was free.

“Because someone already claimed you without asking what you wanted,” he said. “I won’t be the second

man to do that.”

Then he walked out.

I stood behind the counter with my hand pressed over my heart, trying to breathe. I listed a hundred reasons this couldn’t happen.

I’d just survived one bond.

I was having another man’s pup.

I wasn’t ready.

Nova just yawned. You’re lying to yourself. It’s adorable.

The next morning, a delivery truck pulled up outside.

The driver unloaded twenty bags of premium stone-ground flour-the expensive kind Grandma had been dreaming about for years but refused to buy.

No note.

None needed.

Grandma walked outside in her robe, looked at the stack of flour, and sipped her coffee.

“Still not saying anything,” she murmured.

Barbara the goat bleated in agreement.

I threw a dish towel at both of them.