Small Town Love

Interlude: Taunting Pages

The Truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Oscar Wilde

It was taunting him. Any other time Cyril Randall would have thought it ridiculous that a stack of sheets of paper had that power over him.

But it was there.

Staring from him from across the room. Taunting him.

He hadn't allowed him to take a look at the papers since he had received them from an...acquaintances. It wasn't exactly legal.

Well, it also wasn't illegal. He wasn't that sort of alpha.

He turned his attention back to the papers that he did need to read if he didn't want Randall Publishing to lose money and banned the stack of papers across the room from his mind.

The knowledge wouldn't change anything, he told himself.

It had happened nearly 20 years ago. 20 years ago when the title of alpha had been thrust into his arms when his father had been killed by a neighbouring pack. It had been one of the last big conflicts their kind had had.

The territory that had been gained had been split up between the Randall and the Schuyler Pack and since then, there hadn't been any trouble.

Since they were sharing a border, the Atlantic Seaboard had been peaceful, other than some little skirmishes that Stephen Schuyler hadn't ever let out of hand.

Stephen Schuyler reigned with an iron fist around his territory and Cyril couldn't fault him. They needed that kind of strength in an Alpha.

He had met the future alpha of the Schuyler Pack a year ago and couldn't have helped but be impressed with how a 16-year-old boy already knew exactly what he wanted from life.

There was no question that Lucas Schuyler enjoyed....using every weapon at his disposable to do what every 16-year-old boy wanted to do (not that Cyril could fault him), but there was never a question about Stephen Schuyler's son not having the same solid moral compass his father possessed.

The Schuyler Pack was in good hands. It would be in good hands for the upcoming generations and that was important.

Cyril himself was still working day and night to turn his own pack into something that he would be proud to leave to his son.

He tried to get back to his papers, signing the few pages that still needed his signature, before he threw the last document on his desk and finally...finally allowed himself to take the file of paper that had taunted him over the last few weeks.

He had fought with himself for days, even weeks, if he wanted to know. Or if he wouldn't prefer...wouldn't prefer to spend the rest of his life not knowing.

Was ignorance a treasure? Or should he find out if the inkling he had since that day in his office with his sister had been right?

There was just one option he could take with a clear conscience, wasn't there?

He could be wrong. He could be wrong about what he feared, he could be wrong about what he expected the file to hold. He could be wrong about it all.

Maybe that ill-advised...fling hadn't resulted in anything.

He had never let his feelings cloud his decisions after then. It had resulted in a mess the first time...and he was not going through that again.

Maybe she was happily married by now. Maybe she had gotten that exhibition that she had always wanted. Maybe...

There were so many maybes in what Cyril could think off. Maybe he should have fought harder, maybe he shouldn't have been as selfish, maybe he shouldn't have listened to his uncle...maybe he shouldn't have turned his back.

For him, ...for him it had worked out. He had a lovely wife that he adored and two children that he loved more than anything.

He wondered if it had worked out for her in the end.

He opened the file.

Cyril Randall was a lot of things.

A fool was not one of those.