The Beta's Broken Mate (Book 3 Of The Regal Eclipse Pack Series)

Chapter 36

Talia turned to Ragnar the moment they were alone in the dining room. "Hi."

He smiled at her. "Hi."

"I missed you," she whispered, her eyes drifting down to his lips.

"I missed you too. I wanna talk, but somewhere else." He really didn't want to talk, but he knew he needed to be patient with her and let her take the lead in the relationship. He didn't want to do anything she was uncomfortable with, but he hadn't missed her looking at his lips.

Her gaze flicked back up to his eyes. "Okay. Can we go to your apartment?"

"Sure." He stood and Talia followed him out of the room. They got on the elevator and she stood off to the side, watching him through her lashes. She had been attracted to him the moment she'd laid eyes on him, though it had taken her a while to admit it to herself, and that attraction had grown the more she'd gotten to know him. She was no longer attracted to just his looks but to him as a person.

But now even that had changed. She was so much more attracted to him than she had been before. Her body tingled under his intense blue gaze, and she just wanted him to touch her.

The elevator dinged, pulling her out of her thoughts, and she followed him out into the hallway. He stopped, waiting for her to walk next to him down the hall to his apartment.

Once inside, he poured them both a drink and sat down at the table. Ragnar needed that table between them for the moment.
Talia sat down as well and waited for him to speak.

"I hope you're not mad at me for not telling you that you were my mate. I knew you weren't in the right headspace for it, and given that Lila didn't recognize me as her mate, I highly doubted you'd even believe me," He said, studying her with his intense gaze.

"I was at first, but after I thought about it, you handled it exactly the way I would have wanted you to. I wasn't in a good place for a while there. Would you have told me if I had decided to walk away and leave Matthew?" She'd been there at one point, and she wasn't sure if he was aware of it.

"Caleb and I talked about it. We knew what was going on in your head. It was a last resort at that point, but yes, I would have told you if I needed to. I wasn't about to let you do that," Ragnar told her quietly. He wanted to grab her hand, but he'd wait.

Talia felt a tear run down her cheek as she realized what would have happened if she had ended her own life. She would have put him through the same thing she had gone through. How selfish she would have been. But then, she hadn't known either. "I wasn't very happy about it then, but now, I'm glad he pushed me. I can't believe I got so.. " Talia sighed, pushing her blond hair behind her ear. "Yes I can. Ragnar, you helped me through it too. You did more for me .. you kept me sane. You were my biggest comfort throughout that entire ordeal. You still are."

Ragnar watched her brush a tear away and sighed internally. He wanted to hold her and comfort her, but he held back. "Talia, I'm going to let you take the lead in our relationship. I've had a lot more time to get used to the fact that you're my mate than you have, so I want you to take this all at your own pace. I don't want to move faster than you're ready for."

Talia smiled at him. She was happy he was willing to be patient with her. "Thank you. That means the world to me."

"I have something else to tell you, something that's going to come up at the meeting tonight and I don't want you to be blindsided by it," he told her quietly, and watched a frown mar her pretty face.

"Is this going to upset me?" Talia asked him.

"It might, and I'm sorry if it does. I didn't do it to upset you; I did it to save lives."