Chapter 26 #2
“Blake and Nathaniel said they wanted to invest and expand.” Despite the coffee in front of him, Jared reaches over to the sideboard and grabs another bottle of wine, popping the cork.
“We could open an office space on the harbor. Nothing fancy, just a storefront with a meeting room, and you could use it as your base of operations. Dominic could meet clients for design consultations there, too.”
Emily’s eyebrows lift. “That…could work. They’ve been talking about buying a space to replace the hotel suite they keep on reserve. We could kill two birds with one stone.”
Grady pushes his empty wine glass over for Jared to fill. “An office on Harbor Street would work. There’s a building that’s been empty for a while on the corner of Harbor and Spruce. It has good light, with parking in back.”
“You’ve been scouting office space?” I ask.
His mouth quirks. “My realtor tried to sell me on the space when she thought that the Finch family was planning to set up office space in town.”
Jared runs to the office to grab the work laptop and pull up the listing, and Grady switches seats to sit beside him, the two men discussing how each room could be used.
Emily gives input when asked, but otherwise stays quiet.
At first, I think she’s overwhelmed with all the changes being discussed and fighting down her anxiety. But then I note how the color in her cheeks has deepened, and sweat glistens along her hairline.
Of the four of us, she’s the only one who hasn’t been drinking, and she’s been flushed all night.
She shifts in her chair, rolling her shoulders, unable to settle, and she rubs her forearms as if her skin itches.
When she reaches for her water, her hand trembles before she wraps her fingers around the glass and steadies herself.
“We’ll need a warehouse to store stock, too,” Jared is saying. “The lockers on the docks won’t work if the business is expanding.”
Emily nods, still staring at the table, and I’m not convinced she’s actually listening. Her pupils are dilated, black eating into the steel, and when she lifts her glass to her lips, I catch a whiff of her pheromones.
Crushed clover. Warm flannel. But beneath it, a muskier scent that has my dick twitching with awareness.
My stomach tightens, and I take a long sip of coffee before I set the mug down with more care than it deserves.
“Emily.” Grady’s voice cuts through. “How much office space do you think you’ll need?”
She blinks and lifts her head. For a second, her face goes blank, the way it gets when she’s been pulled from somewhere deep inside her own head.
She focuses, her jaw setting. “It will need to be big enough to hold a table for blueprints, material samples, and a few people.”
She sounds steady, but the flush has crept down her neck beneath the collar of her flannel, and when she reaches for her water glass again, her hand shakes so hard the water sloshes.
She catches me looking and tucks her hand back under the table.
“Em?” I whisper. “Are you okay?”
I catch a flash of fear before it’s gone, buried under that familiar stubborn set of her jaw. “It was a long week.”
Jared doesn’t pick up on it. He can’t. His scent-blindness means the pheromonal shift washing through the cottage might as well be happening in another room.
His hands gesture through the air, energized by the planning. Grady listens, contributing when needed, also not noticing.
Why would he? Betas don’t read pheromones the way Omegas do, and what I’m reading turns the wine in my stomach sour.
Emily pushes back from the table suddenly. “Dessert. I baked a cake.”
She stands, and the motion is too quick, too graceless as her chair scrapes across the floor. She steadies herself with one hand on the table.
“I’ll get them,” Jared says, half-rising.
“I’ve got it,” she snaps before she catches herself, her jaw working. “Sit. Enjoy your wine.”
She shuffles to the kitchen, and I track her progress. Her shoulders are tight beneath the flannel, the muscles in her neck corded, and when she lifts the lid off the cake dome, her entire arm trembles from wrist to elbow.
I push back my chair, but stay seated, watching my Alpha struggle.
Emily returns with the cake and sets the plate on the table, her knuckles white around the edges. Her breath comes in short bursts, and when she raises her head, her gray eyes find mine across the table, her guard slipping just enough for me to see it.
She knows. It’s been building for hours, and she’s been fighting it. Denying it. Doing what Emily Wilson always does, carrying the load alone until her arms give out.
The bond pulses between us, and in that shared moment, everything we’ve been hoping for collapses.
Emily’s shoulders shake, a tremor she can’t control, and her face crumples. She doesn’t make a noise as she folds inward, her forehead dropping toward the table, one hand coming up to cover her eyes as if she’s ashamed of the tears.
Jared is out of his chair before the first tear hits the tablecloth. He crosses to her in two strides, his hand finding the back of her neck, over his bonding Mark.
“Hey. Em. It’s okay,” he soothes. “We don’t have to solve the housing thing tonight. Nothing’s decided.”
She shakes her head, her palms pressed into her eye sockets. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jared.”
“For what? Talking about office space? Em, come on.” He crouches beside her chair, his hand still on her neck. “Whatever it is, we can figure it out. You and me. We always do.”
She lowers her hands, tears tracking down her flushed cheeks, and she turns to him, the hurt and regret so raw it squeezes my heart to witness it. “I wanted to give you a baby.”
Jared goes very still, his hand still on her neck. “You’re more than two weeks late, so there’s a good chance. We can confirm it at next week’s appointment.”
I push back from the table. “Jared.”
He turns to me with stubborn, desperate hope, and the words stick in my throat.
I force them out anyway. “Emily isn’t pregnant.”
“What are you talking about?” Jared’s brow furrows. “She’s late. We’ve been tracking it.”
“I know.” As I step around the table, the pheromones hit me harder. “But she’s not pregnant, Jared. She’s going into Rut.”
For three long seconds, he stares at me as if waiting for the punchline. Then his bottom lip trembles before he firms it, acceptance dashing away the hope. He can’t sense the pheromones flooding the room, but he trusts that what I’m telling him is true.
“Rut,” he repeats, the word flat.
Grady shakes his head. “What’s happening? I don’t understand.”
“Female Alphas don’t go into Rut when they’re pregnant,” I explain. “The hormonal pathways are mutually exclusive. If she’s cycling into Rut, she can’t be carrying. The body doesn’t do both.”
A broken sound escapes Emily, and she clutches at her sternum as if she can keep the sobs from breaking free.
“It’s okay, Em.” Jared’s hand moves from her neck to her shoulder, his grip tightening. “We’ll get through this.”
We’ve been preparing for a pregnancy, for morning sickness and prenatal appointments and the careful, tender work of growing a life. Instead, we’re facing an Alpha’s Rut. Exhausting. All-consuming. A biological reset that will leave Emily drained and raw on the other side.
Jared gathers her into his arms and rocks her, his hand stroking her back as he murmurs reassurances into her hair.
I step closer, my hand on her shoulder, and she flinches at the contact, not in rejection but from hypersensitivity, her skin already singing with the early symptoms of Rut. I withdraw, but not before I notice the heat radiating through her shirt. She’s burning up.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, the words muffled by Jared’s chest. “I wanted it so badly.”
“I know.” Jared kisses the top of her head. “It’s okay, Em. This isn’t a failure. We can try again.”
“I want to lie down,” she whimpers.
“Okay, I got you.” Jared scoops her up bridal-style, with no sign of strain.
He continues to murmur soothing words in her ear as he carries her toward their bedroom.
Grady and I stand in the quiet of the dining room.
“What happens now?” Grady asks, filled with uncertainty.
“Now,” I say, “we take care of her.”