#Chapter 12 A Sad Valentine

Third Person POV
Gabriel Marquee was always attractive, especially when he turned into the Alpha King. He was renowned, revered, and the most sought out bachelor for most of his early twenties. So it began to infuriate him as he came to realize his Queen Luna and her newfound business ventures had done the unthinkable.
He sits alone at the dinner table, roses strewn all over the restaurant floors, the entire facility shut down just for the two of them and as it stands, Gabriel is the only one having dinner tonight. He taps his fingers on the table, the band playing a smooth melody meant to entice his date but she isn’t around to enjoy it.
After an hour passes, he picks up the phone, calling the cell he gave her to use for her new business endeavors. She picks up after the second missed call drops.
“My Luna, where are you?”
Her voice is sweet through the phone, tempting to the Alpha’s ears. “I’m working, Gabriel. I have a lot of work to do on this new upgrade proposal for the hospital. I have to get this paperwork cleared and signed off before I can make the donation necessary.”
Although he admired his wife’s new interest in business, he didn’t appreciate her standing him up for a romantic date. This brought a lot of guilt on him though because as much as he had been the one to stand up his wife on occasions like today, he didn’t like the feeling of having it done to him.
“Please, my dear. Get dressed and come have dinner with me. I want us to spend—”
“I have too much work to do, Gabriel. Have a good dinner.”
The call disconnects and Gabriel’s fists make contact with the table. The band stops playing abruptly, the manager of the restaurant on edge. Beyond his anger, he is livid and in shock. He used to have a nice dinner with his wife once every few months and she would throw herself at the opportunity. Now he does something special and it isn’t worth her time.
He plays with his cell phone, debating calling back or throwing it against the far wall.
After a long moment of silent debate, he dials her number again.
“Gabriel, please, this paperwork has to be done for the money to be donated to the hospital. There are too many sick wolves that need the charity funds. You have to let me work.”
“I have to have dinner with my wife,” he fires back, his voice unkind.
“We can do it another time, then.”
“It’s valentines day, my dear.” Gabriel looks around the restaurant, every member of staff watching him carefully, even some of the females begging for his attention, but he can’t get past the chase of trying to hunt down his wife.
He’s never worked so hard for her attention and it’s obviously for nothing.
“How much money are you trying to funnel to the pack hospital? Name the price, I’ll have a check written out for them in two minutes, but you will come here and have dinner with me. Please.”
Despite having other forms of investment available, Olivia had no interest shooting down his generous offer and spat back out an answer without thought, “Two million.”
“Perfect, consider it done,” he says, speaking low into the phone call. “Now please, my dear. Will you come have dinner with me?”
The call disconnects before he gets an answer, but he anticipates her arrival all the same. She isn’t trying to be cruel to the Alpha but her experience with pushy men gets exhausting and she finally has the time and resources to do some good work.
She gets to help wolves like her brother, funding treatment for procedures that would save others like herself. Gabriel on the other hand finally has room in his heart for more than work, but his wife won’t give him the time of day to show that he’s interested in her.
Gabriel has dinner alone.
He isn’t the only one, either.
Herold has an empty pizza box at his feet, overwhelmed and dizzy with thought. After everything with the funeral of his mate, he has only been hearing worse things said about Alicia. He isn’t concerned with tarnishing her name, just frustrated that everything people have been telling him about her is the exact opposite of what she has claimed.
They tell of how they pity Olivia, how she was so kind to help her mate in his time of need. They reinforce the truth about how his mate never cheated, and the baby she died with was the baby of his own offspring.
That hurts him the most.
“Herold,” Alicia calls, walking into the house before sneering, his position on the floor rather pathetic for the Alpha she wants power from; not pitiful displays of somberness. “What is wrong now? You’ve been like this for days. It’s valentines and we should go out.”
“No, I don’t think we should.”
He looks at her now, trying to picture Olivia’s face on hers but he can’t. The only thing he can do is notice her clothes, watching Alicia sport a short sundress Olivia has worn before. It’s a worthless attempt to get his attention, but Alicia tries anyway.
“We’re going to talk about my wife,” Herold growls. “Someone told me something today. I need you to explain it for me.”
“I don’t want to talk about her—”
“Too bad,” he growls, standing at once. “Did you leave when I was in the hospital because you thought I would have been disabled?”
Alicia’s eyes grow wide, her typical lying schemes better received than this one. “What are you talking about, Herold? You know I had to leave. Your mother sent me away!”
“Did she, though?”
“Where is this coming from—”
“Tell me the truth, dammit! All of it.”
Alicia would have kept lying, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. She is fighting to be a Luna of this pack but not if it means her Alpha mate questioning her all the time about his dead wife. She wants to be Luna not therapist to his emotional woos.
So, she tells him the truth. Some of it is more than what he wanted to hear.
He has to look away from her, unable to fathom of how horribly she has treated his mate.
“Don’t kid yourself, Herold. I may have done a lot of mean things but out of the two of us here today, you’re the one that hurt her, not me. You pushed her away and got her killed. You allowed that to happen and you harmed her more than I ever could!”
Herold’s anger would be better, if not for the circumstances of everything Alicia has told him tonight. He can’t stand her voice anymore, or the mere sight of her, and he acts before he can think. He grips the dress off of her body at once.
“You don’t get to wear her things!”
Alicia ran off before he could scorn her further, and he spent the rest of the night trying to drink to forget what he was told. He holds the dress of his late wife, wishing she was still in it so he could express his sorrow. He cries longingly, clinging to the dress, wishing he could redo his life over. Maybe then, Olivia would still be alive.