Chapter 329: The moody husband_Part 1
"I didn’t do anything to win your brother’s heart, Zoe. It just happened." Viola remarked, tucking strands of silver hair behind her friend’s ear, but Zoe was too restless to stand still and began pacing around the room, chewing her nails and pinching at strands of her own hair. Viola watched her go back and forth until she felt dizzy trying to keep up and simply sat down instead.
If she were ever asked how she had won Sebastian over, she genuinely wouldn’t have a story to give, their first meeting had been a complete mess, and she had been a real pain to him in almost every way afterward, and yet he had still stuck around. Probably because of the irresistible mate bond he carried.
"Oh, I forgot, you and hermano are mates. You don’t have to do anything and he would be at your beck and call." Zoe mused miserably, wishing desperately she could reach back through time and unsend that message, but what had been done had been done.
Viola was momentarily stunned that Zoe knew she was her brother’s mate, but before she could say a word about it, her sister-in-law threw herself onto the couch beside her and dropped her head onto her shoulder with a drawn-out whine.
"What must he think of me now? I really love him. I daydream about him all the time, sometimes I make up entire scenarios of our love story and how he might turn out to be my fated mate. I read somewhere that men can act completely indifferent even when they are deeply interested in a woman, and that’s what gave me the push to text him."
Viola put her arm around Zoe and drew her close the way a mother bear would pull in her cub, because this she-wolf was far too precious to be allowed to wallow in that kind of feeling without someone trying to ease it.
"Maybe he won’t think anything of it at all. And maybe he didn’t even fully read it, who knows, maybe he opened the text and lost his grip on his phone before his eyes got to the text, and the screen went dark. Maybe something distracted him the second he opened it and he put it down without reading a word." Viola offered.
Zoe pulled back and looked at her. "You really think so?" Then, before Viola could answer, she added, "I will hold onto absolutely anything that gives me even fake confidence that he hasn’t read it."
"Then hold onto that and stop stressing yourself, silly." Viola reached over and nudged her forehead gently, and Zoe clutched it dramatically before collapsing back against her shoulder.
"I knew I’d feel better coming to you. But I am never letting myself be in the same room as him until I am completely certain everything has been forgotten. I don’t even know what I would say if we came face to face after everything I wrote in that text." She grimaced at the thought. "My brother is going to have a nosebleed if he ever finds out his sister has absolutely no reservations. He once told me never to chase a man who wasn’t already giving me attention, because it would only boost their ego and they would use me, but Gilbert isn’t like that."
Viola looked down at Zoe, who had migrated to lying with her head in her lap, and parted her lips carefully. "What if he found his mate one day, Zoe? Someone who isn’t you. Would you be all right with that?"
Zoe sat up and stared at her with pursed lips. "I think I prefer him single. And you heard him yourself at dinner at my place that day, he said he planned to stay that way. As long as he is, I will keep trying. Maybe not right now, but someday. You’ll see, we are meant to be together."
"But what if he really did find her?" Viola pressed gently. "We have to think ahead sometimes. Maybe you should—"
"No, Vee. Please don’t make me think that far ahead right now." Zoe cut in. "Do you know that apart from Nick and my brother, Doctor Gilbert was the next man who took real care of me? After I was shot, I would have died, but he was there the whole time, whispering to me, promising he would stop the pain. And he did. I couldn’t forget that day, and my feelings for him started there and have only grown since."
Viola bit the inside of her cheek. As a friend and as family, she knew she probably should encourage Zoe to let go, tell her the truth and let her grieve it now rather than later. But she couldn’t bring herself to be the one to break that particular piece of her heart. Maybe it would pass on its own. Maybe once Zoe found her own mate, this fixation would fade the way Laila’s feelings for Sebastian had dissolved the moment Gilbert walked into her orbit.
"Aren’t you going out? You’re all dressed up, did I hold you up?" Zoe asked, finally noticing, and started to rise quickly, but Viola pulled her back down.
"I’m not going anymore. Stay and rest. I was going to go out with Nick since he asked for company, but it’s too late now anyway, and your brother might be on his way back. I promised to be here when he came." Viola said with a small sigh, realizing the dinner she had been cooking wouldn’t go to waste anyway. She had been almost done before Nick called, and if he showed up here, they could all eat together along with her husband.
"I cannot believe Nick called you while completely ignoring my calls." Zoe grumbled. "I heard about Aunt Camila disowning him and rang him straight away, but he didn’t pick up." She settled her head back onto Viola’s lap. "I figured he just wanted to be alone, so I left him to it for now. That cousin of mine has a mood swing of a pregnant woman."
Viola absorbed that with a small frown, because Nick had told her he was lonely and that Zoe was busy, but Zoe had been trying to reach him and he had ignored it. What exactly was he trying to achieve? And to think she had nearly cancelled a dinner with her husband for him, when he had lied to get her there.
She had been telling herself she was reading too much into things, but she had noticed it, on certain occasions, those looks he gave her that lingered just a little too long, the way he had held her hand. Was he trying to maneuver her onto what amounted to a date, using loneliness as the excuse?
She dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it formed. Nick knew she was married. He knew she was the Luna. He wouldn’t be foolish enough to jeopardize their friendship over something like that, would he?
