Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Eli
The morning after Le Roux, I wake up to the sound of Knox snoring directly into my ear and Declan’s elbow lodged somewhere between my ribs. Rhys is already gone. His side of the bed cold, which means he’s been up for at least an hour.
Mia is still asleep, curled into the space Rhys vacated, her face pressed into his pillow like she’s trying to hold on to his scent. One hand is curled into Declan’s hair. The other is stretched toward me, fingers barely brushing my arm.
I extract myself carefully from the tangle of limbs, a feat that requires actual strategy when you’re dealing with three other bodies in a queen-sized bed, and head downstairs.
The house smells like coffee and something sweet. Rhys is at the stove, flipping what appears to be blueberry pancakes. He’s already showered, wearing a clean t-shirt that stretches across his shoulders in a way that would be distracting if I wasn’t already used to it.
“Morning,” I say, making a beeline for the coffee pot.
“Pancakes in five,” he says without looking up. “Made extra batter. Knox will eat at least six.”
“Conservative estimate.”
“I know my pack.”
I pour myself a mug and lean against the counter, watching him work. There’s something meditative about the way Rhys moves in a kitchen. Like he’s building something instead of just cooking breakfast.
“Sleep okay?” he asks.
“Knox’s elbow is like a stake.”
“Tell me about it.” He flips another pancake. “Found a bruise on my ribs this morning that’s definitely elbow-shaped.”
“And yet we keep climbing back into that bed.”
“Yeah.” He glances at me, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “We do.”
The others trickle down eventually. Knox appears first, shirtless and rumpled, making grabby hands at the coffee pot before he’s even fully conscious.
Declan follows, already on his phone, firing off emails to the London office because apparently 6 AM in Sweetwater Pines is a perfectly reasonable time to handle international business.
Mia comes last, wrapped in a cardigan that’s definitely mine, her hair a disaster of tangles and her eyes still soft with sleep.
She’s beautiful.
Not in the way she was last night at Le Roux, all dressed up. This is better. This is real. This is Mia in the morning, unguarded and rumpled and ours.
“Coffee,” she mumbles, and Rhys immediately hands her a mug already topped with extra cream. He’s memorized it, the same way he’s memorized that she hoards the spicy peanut sauce when we order Thai.
She takes the mug with both hands, inhales deeply, and sighs. “You’re my favorite person right now.”
“Just right now?” Rhys asks, sliding a plate of pancakes in front of her.
“Okay, always. You’re always my favorite.”
“Hey.” Knox frowns around a mouthful of pancake.
“You’re my favorite too,” she assures him. “You’re all my favorite. It’s a four-way tie.”
“Sounds about right,” Declan says, finally looking up from his phone. “We’re a package deal anyway.”
The dining table gets loud and crowded. Knox steals blueberries off Mia’s plate.
Declan argues with someone in London about time zones and reasonable working hours.
Rhys refills coffee mugs before anyone has to ask.
I review a contract on my tablet while eating, the comfortable din of pack surrounding me.
This is what I moved to Sweetwater Pines for. Not the quiet. Fuck the quiet. But this. The noise and warmth and constant presence of people who matter.
After breakfast, we scatter to our respective corners of Mia’s house like we’ve been doing it for years instead of days.
Declan takes his call to the back porch.
Knox sets up his laptop at the kitchen counter, code already flying across his screen, his breakfast plate forgotten beside him.
I spread my files across the dining room table, contracts and briefs that need reviewing.
Mia settles next to me with her laptop. We don’t speak, but every time her knee brushes mine under the table, the contact burns.
Through the sliding glass door, I can see Rhys on the back patio. He’s up on a step ladder, drilling a mount for a sleek black security camera into the eaves. He checks the angle on his phone, frowns, then adjusts the lens two millimeters to the left with obsessive focus.
“He really loves working with tech,” Mia says, following my gaze.
“He loves fixing things.” I turn a page in the contract, keeping my attention on her. “Your security just happens to need fixing.”
“Is that what I am? Something that needs fixing?”
I look at her, one brow rising. “No. You’re something that needs guarding.”
A flush rises on her neck. She bites her lip, eyes flicking back to Rhys’s broad back as he drills another screw. “That sounds…intense.”
“Possessive.” I slide my hand under the table to grip her thigh. “There’s a difference.”
Mia does a soft fluttery release of breath through her nose. “I think I might like the possessive part.”
“Good,” I murmur, something like a growl rumbling in my chest. “Because you’re stuck with it.”
I look at the bite mark fading to a dusky rose on her shoulder. The faint, finger-shaped bruise on her wrist from where I pinned her in the nest days ago.
We weren’t “empty” before. We were just pacing the cage. We had the money, the success, the house. But we didn’t have anywhere to put this…drive. This consuming need to own something completely.
Now we do.
I watch her throat work as she swallows her coffee and my hand slides up her thigh under the table, thumb pressing into the soft skin, satisfied when she shivers and her scent spikes.
We found our mate. And we are never letting go.
The morning tension snaps around noon when Knox makes a roar of triumph from the kitchen.
“Lunch,” he announces, dropping a stack of paper plates on the dining table. “I made sandwiches. They are ugly, but they contain protein.”
Mia stifles a laugh before leaning into my touch before she stands.
Rhys comes in a second later, wiping grease from his hands onto a rag. He clocks the flush on Mia’s cheeks, then the way my hand is still lingering on the back of her chair.
His eyes darken immediately. He doesn’t say a word. Just walks past her, grazing his hip against hers hard enough to make her stumble, then catches her against his chest before she can fall.
“Careful,” he rumbles, nose dragging along her hairline, inhaling deep.
Mia makes a small, wrecked sound.
Yeah. We’re keeping her.
Around two o’clock, Mia stands and stretches, her spine popping audibly. “I need to check the mail,” she announces. “And water the hydrangea before Rhys decides it’s his next project.”
“I can hear you,” Rhys calls from the back porch, not looking up from the board he’s examining.
“I know,” Mia calls back, grinning. “That’s why I said it loud enough for you to hear.”
“Brat.”
She stifles another laugh, blushing sweetly, and heads for the front door.
I don’t think much of it. Not at first.
I’m deep in a contract dispute, mentally composing arguments, when I hear it.
The car.
It’s the engine that catches my attention first. A smooth, expensive purr that’s wrong for this neighborhood. Sweetwater Pines is SUVs and minivans and pickup trucks. Not…whatever this is.
I glance up from my contract, frowning.
Through the front window, I watch a beige luxury sedan pull up to the curb across the street.
Beige.
Who the fuck drives a beige car?
The door opens and a man steps out, and everything in me goes still.
He’s…starched. That’s the only word for it.
Clean-cut in a way that looks expensive, carefully groomed like he spent an hour in front of the mirror this morning.
He’s wearing pressed khakis. Actually pressed, with a crease down the front, and a light blue button-down that probably cost three hundred dollars.
Loafers. No socks. His hair is styled with product, every strand in place.
His watch catches the light, definitely a luxury brand.
Everything about him screams safe and respectable and completely fucking boring.
And I know, immediately and with absolute certainty, exactly who this is.
Julian.
The ex. The one who hurt her.
Every protective instinct I have slams into high gear.
I’m on my feet before I consciously decide to move, my chair scraping against the hardwood. Knox looks up from where he’d moved to the other side of the dining table, sees my expression, sees me staring out the window, and his whole demeanor shifts.
“What—” he starts, but then he sees the car. Sees the man. “Who the fuck is that?”
“The ex,” I say, my voice flat.
Knox’s expression goes dangerous. “Julian?”
“Yeah.”
“The one who—”
“Yes.”
Declan appears in the doorway, phone still in hand, his call apparently forgotten. He takes one look at my face and follows my gaze out the window. “Is that—”
“Yes,” Knox and I say in unison.
Through the window, I watch Julian approach the mailbox where Mia is standing. She hasn’t seen him yet. She’s sorting through envelopes, completely unaware.
Then she looks up, and her whole body goes rigid, like she’s bracing for impact.
I hate it. I hate that this man can walk back into her life and make her tense like that.
“Should we—” Declan starts.
“Wait,” I say quietly, still watching. “Let’s see how she handles it first.”
It takes every ounce of control I have to stay put, to not immediately go out there. But Mia needs to fight her own battles, make her own choices. We can’t protect her from everything.
We can just make sure she knows we’re here if she needs us.
Mia is talking now, her arms crossed over her chest. Julian is gesturing, his expression earnest and concerned in that way that probably worked on her once upon a time. The way that says I’m just trying to help while really meaning I know better than you.
I study him with the same detachment I use when reading code.