The Luna's Betrayal

Chapter 5

Sierra’s POV

Waking up on Friday morning, I remembered that Aaron would be coming home today. I also remembered I had to get that manuscript to Ivan before the end of the day today. Going into the office on a Friday wasn’t normally something I did, but I had 2 meetings I was supposed to attend as Ivan’s editing assistant that I had forgotten about until the middle of the night. Training with Austin would have to wait until later. Groaning, I rolled over on our large king-sized bed and stretched. This room seemed so big and empty without Aaron. I hoped his flight wouldn’t take too long.

"As soon as we see him, we’re getting him naked!" Brooklyn all but yelled in my head.

"Calm down you horn dog, there’ll be plenty of time for that."

"Says you, I better get some time with Cole!"

"You’re getting whinier by the day," I joked, to which she stuck out her tongue and flopped down dramatically. "Always putting on a show." Willing myself out of bed, I went to take a quick shower. After my shower, I picked out a white cable knit sweater, light washed jeans, and boots. With the amount of snow we had on the ground, there was no way I was wearing heels today. Going back into our bathroom, I pulled a brush and some product through my hair, intending to let it air dry before I left this morning. Once I was satisfied with my casual Friday look, I walked out of our apartment and to the dining hall for breakfast. When I got to the doorway, I saw Danny, Caleb, my mom, and dad already sitting at the table.

"Where's Austin?" I asked, taking a seat.

"Dunno, maybe he slept in this morning," Caleb said.

"How are you feeling?" I asked Danny.

"Huge," was her only response. I smiled at her encouragingly.

"When should we expect the big man home?" Caleb asked.

"He texted me early this morning that he was taking off, so in a few hours. I’m sure I’ll still be at the office."

"You’re going into the office today?" My mom questioned.

"Yeah, I have two meetings I need to be present for with Ivan that I forgot about. I’ll try not to be there the entire day if I can."

"That means you won't be able to come to training this morning," Caleb added.

"No, sorry."

"Would you be up for some training later today?" The voice behind me was Justin’s. He came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders, giving me a squeeze.

"Sure, it’s been a while since I’ve done any training. I’ve been so busy."

"Care for a second sparring partner?" Austin asked, coming to stand beside Justin.

"Of course, you're welcome to join us," Justin told him. Justin and Austin took seats at our table as the omega's started bringing out food. Today's menu included waffles with all different kinds of toppings, sausage, bacon, and fruit. Caleb grabbed something off every plate before anyone else even had a chance to look and began stuffing his face.

"Honestly," Danny huffed in annoyance. All he did was smile at her with his mouth full as she rolled her eyes. After breakfast, I said goodbye to everyone and headed for my car in the garage which was under the pack house. Aaron had his gray truck while he had bought me a blue four-door sedan. Other members of the pack house kept their cars here too if they didn't have a garage in their house. We also had multiple black SUVs for official use. The drive to work usually took me around thirty minutes, and I took the opportunity to turn on a podcast. Aaron hadn't texted me since early this morning, but I figured he was still in the air. Pulling into the parking lot, I parked in my usual spot and made my way into the office.

"Good morning, Sierra," the receptionist Meredith said happily.

"Good morning," I replied.

"Is Aaron back yet?"

"He's on his flight home now."

"I hope the conference went well for him."

"Thanks, I'm sure he'll tell you about it when he's back." Meredith was human and had no idea her boss was a werewolf. She had been working at the company for five years and was very sweet. I liked her a lot. Since I wasn't a full editor yet, I didn't have my own office, but I had a desk and a small cubicle near Ivan's office. Setting my things down, I took out the manuscript I worked on yesterday, making sure I was happy with my edits. Ivan wasn't in yet, so I took the manuscript and placed it on his desk for later. I went back to my desk and started working on another manuscript that I had pulled out last week that seemed interesting. I had been working for about thirty minutes when I heard Ivan's voice.

"Good morning, Sierra," he smiled at me as he handed me a coffee. His light curly brown hair was messy as usual, and the square glasses covered his dark chocolate eyes. Before I met Aaron, he would have been someone I was interested in.

"Good morning, Ivan. Thanks for the coffee."

"You're welcome. How did you find that manuscript I sent you?"

"It took me a while to get through, but I don't think it was half bad. Not something I would be interested in personally, but there's definitely an audience for that type of thing. I left it on your desk."

"Great, I'll take a look. We have that meeting in an hour, and we also have a new fiction editor joining our team today. He'll be here in about an hour."

"Really? Where are they from?"

"From our sister publishing company in Nashville." My heart jumped slightly at hearing him say Nashville. It had been a while since I thought about my life there.

"Wait, you don't think he could possibly mean?"

"No, there's no way. OPM had a ton of other editors in their fiction department, I'm sure it's someone else."

"What are you working on now?"

"Oh," his question brought me out of my conversation with Brooklyn. "I found this last week and it was really intriguing, so I thought I'd start going through it and then send it to you to see what you thought." Ivan glanced over my shoulder to read the title.

"Yeah, sounds good. Just leave it on my desk when you're finished. Remember, meeting in an hour." Nodding my head, Ivan went into his office. The minutes continued to tick by, and soon Ivan came out of his office for the meeting. "Grab your laptop, it's time to go."

"Alight," I said, grabbing the things I would need. Following Ivan to the conference room, we took a seat around the large oval table and waited for everyone else to arrive. The next person to enter the room was Haley, the editor in chief, followed by her assistant, Theo. Also coming to the meeting were the other senior editors, Matteo, Simon, and Lexi. Once everyone had taken a seat, Haley started the meeting.

"I want to thank everyone for taking the time for this meeting. Let's do our best to make this a quick one because I know we're all very busy." She continued to talk, and I took notes about what she was saying for Ivan. This meeting was about how to find more potential authors and what online surveys say young readers are interested in. It took about an hour and a half before it seemed like we were nearing the end. "I would also like to introduce everyone to our newest fiction editor, he's transferring here from Nashville." She got to her feet and went to the door. "Everyone, this is Josh Garmen." To my horror, in walked my former boss from Nashville who fired me because I rejected his advances.

"Sh*t," I said to Brooklyn, to which she replied,

"Sh*t....." Looking around the room, Josh's eyes landed on me and with my wolf hearing, I heard his inaudible "Sh*t." He quickly composed himself, as if nothing was wrong.

"Hello everyone, I'm very happy to be on board with your team." He glanced at me again.

"Um, are we going to pretend like we don't know each other?" Brooklyn asked.

"I don't know." Haley began introducing Josh to everyone around the table.

"And finally, this is Sierra Bennett, she's one of our junior editors and is married to..."

"Aaron," he finished her sentence for her.

"Yes, do you two know each other?"

"Actually, we do," Josh told her. Haley looked at me with confusion on her face.

"I actually was his assistant for a short period. Before I moved away with Aaron."

"Oh, well, I'm sure it's nice to see a familiar face," she said with a smile.

"Clearly, she has no idea what happened between the two of us."

"Well, I think we've gotten through everything we wanted to. Thank you all for giving me your time." Everyone started to clear their things and exit the conference room. Keeping my gaze down and away from Josh, I packed up my laptop and started following Ivan out of the room.

"Sierra," I heard from behind me. Sighing out in frustration, I turned to look at Josh. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Okay."

"Why are you gonna talk to him? Don't you remember what he did to us?" Brooklyn yelled.

"Of course, I do, but we need to at least be cordial if he's gonna be working here." She just rolled her eyes in annoyance. Josh walked back into the conference room, holding the door open for me to follow him. Taking a seat, I could feel the awkward tension between us. The last time we had seen each other, he fired me because I didn't want to go out with him, disguising it under the impression my performance had been slipping. Deciding I was going to let him start this conversation, I stayed quiet.

"The only thing we're responding to is an apology," Brooklyn barked. Josh took a deep breath, placed his arms on the table and looked at me.

"How have you been?"

"Fine," I answered shortly.

"I wasn't expecting you to be here."

"Obviously. Like we couldn't tell that from his face."

"Would you hush for five minutes!"

"It's a shock for me too, seeing you."

"So, you and Aaron..."

"Got married? Yeah, we did, a year ago actually," I answered, looking down at my ring.

"That's, that's great." From the tone of his voice, I could gather it was in no way great.

"Look, I have a lot of work to do, so if you brought me here for small talk, we can do that over the water cooler." I began getting to my feet.

"Wait!" he called, stopping me midway. Sinking back down into my chair, I looked at him.

"I just... I wanted to apologize for the way I acted towards you."

"We're listening."

"You do?"

"Yeah, I should never have done what I did. I let my feelings cloud my better judgment, which wasn't fair to you."

"Wow, you didn't strike me as the type of person to apologize," I told him matter-of-factly.

"I'm not. I only do it when I know I've done something wrong. I don't want there to be any animosity between us, especially if we're both going to be working here."

"Thank you, I appreciate you apologizing to me. I'm willing to leave the past in the past if you are."

"Absolutely, thank you." He reached towards me to shake my hand. I met him halfway.

"At least we're going to be able to work together without it being weird," Brooklyn declared.