Page 45 of Half Wolf Mate
She frowned. “You’re in a strange mood like Damian. What’s with you guys tonight? Come to think of it, Macy behaved strangely all night too. What’s up with her and Damian?”
I stood up. “Not my business to tell. You’ll have to ask them. And I’m in a strange mood because I’m nervous.”
Her eyes darted from side to side. “About what?”
“Giving you your gifts. I hope you like them since I didn’t get much time to plan.”
She stared at me wide-eyed. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
I pulled the rectangular velvet box from my pocket. “I wanted to get you something.” Flipping the box open, I took out the bracelet with emerald stones. “I decided against getting a necklace since you never take that one off.”
She stroked the crescent moon pendant nestled between her breasts. “It was my mother’s,” she whispered, staring at the bracelet. “Cole, I can’t take that. It looks insanely expensive.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s yours, if you like it. I chose this because the stones reminded me of your eyes.”
Her gaze flew up to my face. “I…I love it.”
“Good.” Putting the bracelet around her wrist, I snapped it close.
“Thank you,” she said, although she still watched me with confusion.
“Now, for your next gift. I think you’re going to like this one more.”
Gazing at the bracelet, she said, “I don’t know. This bracelet is gorgeous.”
“This is worth way more than jewelry.” I picked up the stack of folded papers from the coffee table and handed them to her.
She glanced at me before unfolding them. “Letters?”
“Yes. I sat in my office for a while, wondering what to get you.”
“You put that much thought into it?”
I nodded. “I remembered your mother and mine.”
Her eyebrows puckered.
“Although I was a child, I vaguely remembered my mother petitioning my father not to be too hard on your mother. She said something about the beauty of true love. Anyway, she was convinced the love between your parents was worth forgiving.”
“Really?”
“My mother was a gentle soul.” My lips twisted into a smile. “And a hopeless romantic. “Anyway, another memory surfaced—very clearly—because at that time, I was a teenager.”
Sydney stepped closer, apparently hanging on my every word.
“My mother was reading something, and Dad was pissed about it. He wanted to know why she hadn’t ‘burned the evidence of betrayal years ago.’ Mom insisted that they were too beautiful to destroy. As it turned out, she’d saved the letters your mother left behind when she was shunned from the pack. Letters from your father. They were stashed in my mothers’ things.” I never got around to getting rid of my parents’ things. I didn’t want to.
Sydney gazed at the letters.
“I’m sorry I read through some of them. I had to make sure they were really Sophia’s.”
“Why are you giving them to me?”
“Because no matter what anyone says about your parents’ union— no matter what I’ve said—you were conceived out of love, Sydney. I thought you should know that.”
“My father really wrote these to my mother?”
“Yes.”