Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna-Chapter 143: The cheesy video call-Part 2

Viola clasped her fingers against her mouth in embarrassment and to muffle a laugh when he stepped out to show her the hallway outside his office where there was not a single soul around. "What are you doing? Are you giving me a tour of your place?" Viola remarked, feeling a very huge relief wash over her like a large rock had been lifted off her chest.

"Your words asked for a tour, love, I am giving you one so you can believe that there is no Laila here. It’s just me and I have been here since I left your place, look those are my clothes from this morning I took my shower here. Tell me if there is anything else you want me to show you?" Came his voice as she couldn’t see his face, because he was still giving her the tour with his back camera.

"Stop it, I don’t want a tour. I have seen more than enough." Viola mused, biting down on her bottom lip and feeling immensely embarrassed. Why on earth had she even blurted those words out? She thought to herself, and a tiny voice in the back of her head answered her quietly.

’Isn’t it good that you said the words? At least you know he didn’t change his mind from coming to you because of Laila...’

Sebastian switched the camera back to his face and Viola noticed his handsome grinning expression, his silver hair was messy, like he had run his fingers through it repeatedly, with loose strands falling all over his forehead and nearly poking at his eyes. The urge to reach through the phone and move the hair away was so strong that she heard herself say, "Move your hair away from your eyes less it poke you."

"Is it bothering you?" Sebastian teased, using his fingers to comb it back and away from his eyes, but the strands soon bounced right back, and he let them be.

"Now tell me, what makes you think I am with Laila? Could it be that...you are jealous?" He questioned, the thought that she might actually be jealous pleasing him so deeply that he couldn’t help but smile even more broadly. Jealousy meant she was becoming possessive, just like him, didn’t it?

Viola would rather have died than ever admit to being jealous. She snorted, "Why should I be jealous? We are just friends, aren’t we?" Hiding behind the friendship zone was a shield for her, a way to protect herself and her own nature from herself. He must never know about her deep insecurities that led her to intense jealousy.

Sebastian’s smile faltered, but he nodded. "Hmm, You have no reason to be jealous even if I have sex with Laila or another woman. Mrs. Sebastian Kade isn’t going to be a jealous wife." He stated, watching carefully for her reaction, but if she was affected by his words at all, she gave nothing away, and Sebastian’s mood soured a little at that. It seemed she wasn’t yet possessive of him the way he wished she would be...

"Have you eaten?" Viola changed the subject, not wanting to talk about his relations with other women or whether she would make a jealous wife. It was time she began to scold herself out of being jealous and insecure over a man she didn’t even want to love, if she could ever help it.

"I haven’t. And why are you sitting on the floor?" Sebastian questioned, noticing her background. "Don’t tell me you plan to sleep on the floor again?"

"Why haven’t you eaten, don’t change the subject, Sebastian." Viola narrowed her eyes at him. He had pestered her endlessly about eating while quietly skipping his own meals. How was that even remotely fair?

Sebastian flashed her a smile as he said, "I will eat soon—"

"It’s unhealthy to eat when it’s gets too late, if you will eat, you should do it now." Viola insisted, and though Sebastian felt he should have been annoyed at being spoken to so firmly, he liked it, and felt something warm stir quietly inside him, because nobody ever thought to worry about when he ate or whether he had eaten at all.

He carried the heavy burden of an entire pack on his shoulders, and many always assumed he had everything entirely figured out and didn’t need to be reminded of when to do things for himself. Even the wife he recalled from the past, Evangeline, had never once cared about his meal times, they hadn’t even eaten together to begin with, and Sebastian had never known until this moment that he would have liked it if someone scolded him about something as simple as that.

"I will eat now, but lay down on the bed. Don’t sleep on the floor. We can continue talking when you are on the bed and you can watch me eat." Saying that, Sebastian set his phone on a stand on his desk and then reached for the package of food that had been delivered to him a few minutes ago, settling down in front of his phone.

He watched Viola move around the room and then return to the bed. There were a few moments of soft rustling sounds before she settled down with the blanket pulled up over her head and the glow of her phone screen illuminating her beautiful face as she looked at him with unconsciously pouted lips, soft, kissable, pouted lips that sent heat to his loin as he recalled how soft it had been to kiss her.

Viola watched as he began to open his meal package. "What kind of food is in it?"

He showed it to her and Viola saw the expensive packaging of the general food prepared for the important people staying in the high tower, which she didn’t like because of the risk of fish in it. "It looks delicious. Enjoy." She mused, biting back a yawn as a wave of sleepiness washed over her, something she had thought would be entirely impossible tonight.

She watched Sebastian eat, his chewing barely making any sound at all, and she smiled quietly at his manners. He caught her smiling and asked her why she was smiling and she told him it was nothing.

"Are you sleepy?" He asked, and she shook her head.

"Hmm," Sebastian hummed, already seeing the drowsiness settling into her eyes and the yawn she kept trying to bite back. Before he knew it, her eyes had begun to drop slowly, and as though she simply couldn’t fight it any longer, they closed completely and she was soon breathing steadily, her phone tilted to the side where he could only see half of her face.

Sebastian didn’t end the call, not when he was watching her peaceful sleeping face, and not when the sight of it calmed something restless deep within him. She was so babyish and cute while asleep and she hadn’t even taken off her glasses.

Sebastian recalled her words about Laila and he was grateful that he had dispelled any of her doubts before they could have ruined the progress he had made with her in this relationship that looked like it would remain stuck in the friendship zone until she awakened her wolf and felt his bond.

As he watched her sleeping face, Sebastian recalled his conversation with the therapist about Viola.

’What you have described to me sounds like the pattern of someone with deep self-hatred, and people who hate themselves often behave in predictable ways. They blame themselves for everything. They reject compliments. They expect rejection before it even happens. And sometimes they sabotage good things because deep down they believe they don’t deserve them.’ The man had explained to Sebastian.

’So what do I do?’ Sebastian had pressed. ’Tell me what actually helps.’

The man’s voice softened. ’You create safety.’

’That’s it?’ Sebastian had asked skeptically.

’That’s the beginning,’ the man corrected. ’A traumatized mind lives in survival mode. It expects harm, abandonment, or betrayal. When someone consistently proves those expectations wrong, the brain slowly begins to relax.’

’Slowly,’ Sebastian had repeated, clearly not liking the word. He hated slow progress and wanted a fast cure.

’Yes. Slowly.’ The man had told him. ’You can’t cure her. That isn’t your role.’

The words had landed like a stone inside Sebastian, who had been hoping to cure her trauma if it turned out to be the very reason keeping her wolf from awakening.

’But you can support her while she heals,’ the man continued. ’You listen without dismissing her feelings. You don’t try to argue her pain out of existence. You remain steady when she expects you to leave.’

’And eventually she just... believes me?’ he had asked.

’Not exactly,’ the man had said. ’Eventually she gathers enough new experiences to question the old story she tells herself.’

’Trauma changes the mirror someone uses to see themselves. But mirrors can be replaced.’

Sebastian had exhaled slowly, absorbing every word.

’The only way to help her heal is for you to stay. Not as her savior... but as proof that she was never as unworthy as she believes. Everything will fall into place patiently.’

Remembering all those words now, Sebastian let out a quiet sigh. It was why he had quickly shown her around his office before she could doubt him and convince herself that he was like Evan, who had cheated and she put the bricks back around herself again to close him off.

He wasn’t a cheater, and he had promised himself not to cheat, not even given that their relationship was still rooted in friendship. She was his fiancée, friendship or not, and she would be his wife.

"Good night, darling," he whispered to her, still not ending the call, before his eyes drifted to the small screen on his desk that displayed the calendar. On it, there was a red circle drawn around the 30th, and the current day was the 10th. His fingers fisted slowly as his eyes stayed fixed on that circled date, a day he hated with everything inside him, yet it kept circling back around no matter how much time passed.

Before that day arrived, he had to make her trust him enough and find more signs of her being the one, or some things might fall apart entirely.