Ch. I can hear my cold husbands dirty thoughts 13 I can hear my cold husbands dirty thoughts 13

Chapter 13 

Chapter 13 

+45 Coins 

They led Marcus out smoking gently-alive, lawyered, and finished. The vote, held forty minutes late in a state of collective shock, came back ninety-one percent in Damian’s favor, which proved what I’d always suspected about shareholders: they can forgive anything that makes the stock go up, and “our CEO is an immortal-bloodline guardian wolf” had sent it up eleven points in after-hours trading. 

I found my mother by the bar, watching the chaos with deep satisfaction. 

“Mom. You’re taking this well.” 

“Sweetheart.” She sipped her martini. “Your great-grandmother used to leave a saucer of milk out for the harbor wolves every new moon. Did you think I picked your husband off a spreadsheet?” She patted my cheek. “Strong bloodline. Excellent bones. Grandchildren by spring.” 

“MOM.” 

I escaped to the terrace, where the man of the hour stood alone in the moonlight, jacket gone, sleeves rolled, the city glittering below him like spilled treasure. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to. 

“Vanilla,” his mind said, warm. “There she is.” 

“You did it,” I said, joining him at the rail. “You’re out. You’re free. And you’re trending-‘Wolf Street’ is the number one hashtag in eleven countries. Kane says the croissant footage is, quote, ‘cinema.” 

“We did it.” He turned to me, and the moonlight loved him, silvering his edges. The gold sat openly in his eyes now-no flinch, no hiding. “Sienna. There’s one thing left I haven’t told you.” 

“Damian, if you have a second tail, I swear-” 

“Wolves don’t-it’s one tail, and it’s dignified-” He caught himself, exhaled, and took both my hands. “The bond. The reason you hear me.” His thumbs traced over my knuckles. “It opened the night you fell into my arms-because that was the night you walked downstairs carrying the papers. The night you actually decided to leave.” 

I went still. 

“The bond doesn’t wake on schedule. It wakes at the breaking point-when the wolf is about to lose his mate forever, it opens one last door. A final mercy. So she can hear the truth before she goes.” His voice roughened. “Every word you heard, every thought-that was the bond pleading my case, because I was too much a coward to do it myself. You were never invading my mind, Sienna. My soul was yelling for you.” 

The terrace blurred. I blinked hard. 

“And there’s a second half,” he said quietly. “It’s one-directional only until the mate chooses. Freely. Words spoken, 

Chapter 13 

+45 Coins 

knowing everything. If you say them, the door opens both ways-I’d hear you, too, for the rest of our lives. And if you 

don’t- His jaw worked. “If you don’t, the bond closes at the next new moon, and you go free, with my name, half of 

everything, and no wolf shadowing your life. I’d let you go, Sienna. It would end me, but I’d do it smiling.” 

The wind moved between us. Below, eleven million people went about their nights. 

“The next new moon,” I said. “How long do I have to decide?” 

His face stayed brave. His thoughts didn’t even try: “Twelve days. Twelve days and then a lifetime of one wall between 

us, forever, in every house I’ll ever-” 

“Because I want to make sure,” I continued, stepping closer, “that you understand what you’d be agreeing to. You’d 

hear everything, Damian. Every petty thought. Every time I think your meetings are boring. Every single thing I notice 

about your forearms. The collarbone poetry goes both ways, and mine doesn’t even rhyme-” 

“Sienna.” His voice cracked open. Hope poured through the gap like daylight. 

“I dragged divorce papers around for three weeks and couldn’t sign them,” I said. “I sat down next to the wolf. I ran a counter-coup in a ballgown. Damian Blackwood-I chose you two years ago off one photograph, and then I chose you again every single day this week, knowing everything, fangs and ferocity and clause forty-seven and all.” I took his face in my hands, his pulse hammering under my palms. “So hear me. Freely spoken. I am your wife. I am your mate. I’m 

choosing this. I love you.” 

The world rang like a struck bell. 

It wasn’t sound, what opened. It was a door I’d been living next to my entire life without knowing-and through it came two years, all at once: every closed-door midnight, every cold shower, every guarded glance over coffee, the whole vast, patient, ferocious architecture of his love, flooding into me until I couldn’t breathe. 

And then, arriving in my mind in his voice, the very first thought my husband ever sent to me on purpose: 

“Finally. Now-about that dud rumor.”