Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Grady
“Idon’t care if you don’t need a chaise lounge, Grady Garfield Finch. You’re getting one.” Chloe plants both hands on her lower back and glares at me with the ferocity of a woman who’s been carrying twenty extra pounds for months and has run out of patience for my practical objections.
“Where would I even put it?” I lean on my cane and eye the tufted white chaise in question. “My cabin has two bedrooms and an office. I’m one person.”
“You’re going to get rid of that nasty couch you put in storage!” She pats her swollen belly. “We got it off a curb, and it can go back where it belongs. It is not coming into your brand-new home.”
I press a hand over my heart. “How dare you. I love that couch.”
“You will love one that was made in this decade better.” She snaps. “This is no longer a bachelor pad. It’s time to get adult furniture.”
Dominic materializes behind her left shoulder, his black hair in its usual French braid, gray eyes on his bondmate. “The chaise would fit in the reading nook by the west window.”
She throws up her hands in exasperation. “The reading nook is for books, Dom.”
He turns a steely stare on me that dares me to keep arguing with his mate. “Then I guess it’s replacing the old sofa.”
“Finally!” she exclaims. “Someone who understands!”
“I’m beginning to think you only gave me the cabin so you could play adult-size doll house,” I huff, my knee throbbing.
We’ve been in this furniture store for an hour already, and the polished concrete floor is doing me no favors. I shift my weight to my good leg and scan the showroom.
Harbor View Furniture occupies the entire second floor of the old cannery building, the windows along the far wall framing a slice of Pinecrest’s harbor where fishing boats bob alongside the water taxi dock.
Afternoon light slants through the glass, catching dust motes and the occasional glitter of chrome on a lamp base.
Chloe waddles ahead to coo over a sideboard that I absolutely do not need, her pink hair falling out of its messy bun on top of her head. The clerk trailing us has given up on taking notes and now just follows with the resignation of someone who’s made peace with being along for the ride.
“Oh, Grady, look!” She points across the showroom. “Bedroom sets!”
“I already have a bedroom set,” I remind her. “And a dining table. And a desk. All of it’s sitting in a storage unit, waiting for me to arrange shipment to the island.”
She scowls at me. “Your desk is particle board.”
“It’s functional.”
“It’s going to disintegrate.” She stops in front of a dresser and runs her fingers over the walnut grain. “Dominic, would this fit in the bedroom alcove?”
He pulls out his phone and taps the screen a few times. “It will work. With two inches to spare on either side.”
“I don’t need a dresser. I have a closet.”
“You have a wardrobe. Also from the curb.”
“It was a university yard sale, and it holds clothes just fine.”
She gives me a look that could curdle milk and moves on.
I trail behind them, cane tapping on the concrete, and try to keep up. My bad knee protests every step, a dull ache building behind the kneecap. March in Pinecrest means rain one minute and weak sunshine the next, and today my leg has decided to take the barometric pressure personally.
As I pause beside a display of throw pillows and dig the heel of my hand into the muscle above my knee, a writing desk along the far wall catches my attention, half-hidden behind a leather armchair.
It’s solid oak, from the look of it, the grain rich and warm under the track lighting, with two drawers on either side and brass pulls.
The surface is wide enough for a laptop, a notebook, and a cup of coffee with room to spare.
It’s not ornate or fussy. Just good, solid wood.
The kind of desk Emily would approve of.
The kind that belongs in a room with a view of water through pine trees.
I step closer, my fingers finding the edge of the desk, and I trace the bevel where the top meets the side.
I can picture it in the downstairs office, where Dominic designed the window to catch the morning light.
My chair pulled up to it, my back to the wall so I can look out at that sliver of harbor visible between the firs.
My hands on the keyboard, or a pen balanced between my fingers, working on something someone else didn’t write.
Before I can stop myself, I check the price tag and flinch at the number of zeroes.
The desk I have in storage is functional.
I step back, my cane tapping as I turn away.
“You’re not getting the desk?” Chloe materialized at my elbow, one hand braced on the armchair for balance, her belly leading the way.
“I already have one,” I tell her dryly.
She wrinkles her nose, eyebrows drawing together, nostrils flaring, and the corners of her mouth turning down.
I hold up a hand to stall her disparagement of all my worldly possessions. “I’m not replacing everything I already own, so stick to the basics.”
“Fine,” she grumbles. “But you’re definitely getting the couch.”
Before I can protest, her attention snags on a piece of furniture across the showroom, and her whole body pivots, one hand flying up to point. “Bookshelf. Grady! Bookshelf.”
She’s off, moving with the determined waddle of a very pregnant woman who has spotted literary real estate and will not be denied.
“You don’t need any more places to put your unused notebooks!” I call after her.
Without turning around, her middle finger appears over her shoulder, and the clerk behind us coughs into his fist.
Chloe wedges her entire upper body between two bookshelves, one arm stretched toward a top shelf while the clerk hovers behind her, letting out increasingly distressed little sounds.
Dominic hesitates for three full seconds, weighing whether intervention is worth the risk, before turning to me instead.
“She’s going to pull the whole thing over on herself,” I say.
“It’s possible.” He doesn’t sound too concerned. “But the alternative is me telling her no, and I value my life more.”
I snort and lean on a display table.
“How was the trip home?” Dominic asks.
I study the grain of the table under my palms. “Complicated.”
“We missed you,” he says. “All of us. Chloe especially. She threatened to name the baby Garfield at least twice.”
“So she threatened to me while I was gone. She’ll never do it, though.”
“I don’t know, she might.” His mouth quirks. “She’s planning to ask you to be the godfather.”
My brows shoot up in surprise. “What? She was serious about that?”
Dominic waves a hand. “Don’t be so surprised. You’re the most important person in the world to her outside of her bondmates. You can share the honor with Emily as the godmother, if Blake gets his way.”
A warmth fills me that has nothing to do with the afternoon sun slanting through the windows. “I’m honored, and I accept.”
“Good.” He lets the word sit between us for a beat. “Have you given any more thought to joining the pack?”
There it is. The question I’ve been dodging since Chloe first mentioned it.
“I’ve thought about it.” I roll my cane between my palms. “But I don’t understand what it means for me, or for all of you.”
Dominic doesn’t appear surprised. “It means family. You’d fall under our insurance, which offers excellent coverage, by the way.
Nathaniel made sure of that. You’d have a home on the island.
Unlimited meals from Holden, which is worth it all on its own.
Legal protection if you ever needed it. The Wright name on permits, contracts, anything that requires a signature from a pack that’s established and solvent. ”
He ticks each point off on his fingers. “At the most basic level, we’d be adopting you into our family.”
I absorb this, turning the cane in my hands. “And what do the Wrights get out of the arrangement?”
Dominic arches one dark eyebrow. “Besides ensuring Chloe’s happiness?”
“Yes, besides that.” I tap my finger on the handle of my cane. “What’s the ROI on adopting a Beta with a busted knee and nothing else to bring to the table?”
“Your skills,” Dominic says without hesitation. “Your eye for contract negotiation. Your ability to see the gap in a market that everyone else is overlooking. We’re investing in your future, because we believe in what you can build.”
I blink. “That sounds a lot like a business merger.”
He chuckles. “It is like a business merger. Welcome to pack dynamics, Grady. We’re a business with a family attached.”
The honesty is refreshing, even as it confirms my worst fear, that my value, here as everywhere, is tied to what I can do for other people. Not who I am. What I produce.
I check on Chloe’s location. She’s emerged from between the bookshelves with a small wooden bookend clutched to her chest, arguing with the clerk about something I can’t hear. Far enough away.
I lower my voice. “If the Wrights are hoping to gain access to the Finch family through me, you’re wasting your time.” The words come out with a bitter edge. “When I left Connecticut, my dad kicked me out of the family.”
Dominic goes very still. “I see.”
“So you knew about my connection.”
Dominic doesn’t pretend otherwise. “Of course, I looked into your background before we extended the invitation.”
The admission should sting, but it doesn’t. At least someone here is being straight with me.
“I would’ve done the same,” I admit.
“I know.” He shifts, one hand coming to rest on the display table beside mine. “That’s part of why we want you. You understand due diligence.”
A rusty laugh escapes me. “Due diligence. Is that what we’re calling stalking someone’s family tree now?”
“Background check,” he corrects, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Stalking implies I didn’t use legal channels.”
“Of course you did.” I rub my thumb along the edge of my cane. “Finch Holdings isn’t private about its board members.”
“No.” His jaw sets. “But the trust fund is.”
I flinch. “Well, you can kiss that goodbye.”
“Did the visit home really go that badly?” he asks with genuine concern.
I focus on the harbor, where a fishing boat is coming in, its nets draped over the stern. “I turned down an arranged marriage worth several fortunes, which lost my place in the family and the trust fund I’d always considered my backup plan if life ever went to shit.”
I swallow, the tightness in my throat having nothing to do with the dry air in the store. “So, yeah. It went about as well as a house fire.”
“You can recover from house fires. Believe me, I know.” Dominic is quiet for a long moment. “Tell me about the trust fund.”
I shouldn’t. This is the part I haven’t told anyone, not even Chloe.
The safety net I’ve carried in the back of my mind since I left home at eighteen, the knowledge that if everything fell apart, I had a parachute.
Now the parachute is gone, and the ground is a lot farther down than it was before I flew home to Connecticut.
“It’s from my maternal grandfather’s side,” I say. “It’s old money. Older than the Finch Holdings. The family trust controls it, not individual beneficiaries. I would have gained access at thirty, or upon marriage to someone the board approved.”
I flatten my palm on the table, the cool wood warming at my touch. “Since I’m no longer considered family, and the marriage isn’t happening, that future is... gone.”
“Do you mind if I look into it?”
I blink. “What?”
“The trust.” He says it the same way he might ask to review a set of blueprints. “Not because the Wrights need your money, to be clear. But it belongs to you, and refusing an arranged marriage shouldn’t cost you your inheritance.”
The offer hangs between us, both simple and enormous. No one has ever offered to fight the Finch lawyers on my behalf. Not even me.
“The Finch legal team is good,” I warn him. “They’ve been protecting that money since before I was born.”
“If the Sinclair Pack didn’t scare me away from getting my mate what they owed her, neither will the Finch lawyers.” His confidence is quiet and absolute. “Send me the paperwork. The trust documents, whatever you have. I’ll have Nathaniel’s legal team take a look.”
A tension uncoils in my chest that I’ve been carrying for so long that I forgot it was there. “I’m not optimistic.”
“You don’t have to be. That’s my job.” He taps the table once. “Now, back to the pack invitation.”
Just like that, we’re back on solid ground. Business. Family business. The kind with spreadsheets and insurance policies and unlimited access to Holden’s blueberry muffins.
I take a breath. “What happens if someone else has also asked me to join their pack?”
Dominic’s lips twitch. “Would that someone happen to be a certain Alpha superintendent at Wilson Construction?”
Heat floods my cheeks, and I stare at the floor. “Perhaps.”
“Grady.” He says my name gently. “While you were away, we extended the same invitation to Emily and Jared.”
My head snaps up. “What?”
“They’re considering it. We’re pretty certain they’re going to accept.” He studies me. “They haven’t talked to you about it?”
“No.” The admission hurts more than expected. Emily didn’t tell me. She had the chance last Sunday in her kitchen, and she didn’t say a word. “When?”
“Last week. They got stuck on the island after dinner at Leif’s.” He shrugs. “We’d been planning to wait, but there was an opportunity, and Blake and Nathaniel sprung it on them.”
I digest this, turning it over. Emily had said she’d find a way to build a pack to bring me in. I just didn’t think this was how she planned to do it.
I frown. “And they haven’t accepted yet?”
“No. Emily’s prideful. She’s been doing everything herself for a long time.” Dominic smirks. “But they’re going to accept.”
“How can you be so certain?” I ask.
“Because we already have the Omega they want.” He leans closer, his grin turning positively evil. “And we’re about to get their Beta.”
And now it all makes sense.
This is what they get by bringing me in.