Chapter 2
M y instincts nearly tore me in two, wanting to go after Lawson and pummel him into the pavement, and wanting to stay right where I was to protect Ava. She was more important than all the satisfaction I would get from punching him in the face. Once Lawson walked away, I poured all of my attention onto Ava. “Shit. I’m so sorry. I had no idea I was going to whistleblow on a whole secret life.”
“It’s not—” She let out a hiccupping sob. Her delicate dark blonde hair hung in loose, styled curls, her hazel eyes wide and shiny from tears. “It’s not your fault. I feel so stupid. No wonder he didn’t want to get engaged.”
Fucking hell. How could Lawson have pulled this level of shit? Poor Charlotte. Poor Ava. Fuck. I’d heard of men having a secret second family, but I never thought I’d actually see it in action.
A wail of despair flew out of her and I dropped to my knees in front of her, all of my instincts screaming at me to stop that sound and help her. “Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not!”
Fix it. Fix it. Fix it!
Beneath Ava’s distress scent was the most delicious, nutty sweetness and it wove through every molecule of my being, tossing itself over my heart in a snare I hoped to never be free from.
Of all the fucking times to find a scent match. I had never hoped or dreamed that I would find one, and now that I had, I didn’t know what to do with her, how to help her. A recently traumatized and pregnant stranger was not what I’d have ever expected. I would rip Lawson a new asshole later. Right now I needed to take care of this beautiful woman that fate had decided was meant to be mine.
“Ava, what can I do? Have you eaten?”
She shook her head.
I asked a question that I was terrified to know the answer to. “Was Andrew a scent match?”
“No,” she said quietly.
Thank fucking god for small miracles. The last thing I needed was for her to have some kind of fate bond to that asshole. It would be hard enough to navigate him with just the baby.
“Do you have somewhere you can go?”
Ava shook her head. “Only back to the hotel room with him.”
That was not going to happen.
“Okay.” I took a deep breath, looking up at her with concern. “I can ask one of my coworkers if I can bunk with them and you can have my room for tonight.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Sweetheart, you’re not asking. I’m offering.”
Ava sniffled. “You don’t even know me.”
“I don’t,” I agreed. “But I do know the asshole who hurt you, and there’s no way in hell I’m not going out of my way to help out a pregnant, distressed omega. Let me take care of you, at least for tonight. I’ll order you some dinner, and you can rest. Come back to my room with me?”
It was a stupid question. Ava didn’t know me, but I couldn’t leave her out here, and I sure as hell couldn’t let her go back to Andrew. I couldn’t even say that he was safe for her to be around in any sense. Before today I never would’ve thought he had it in him. Sure, he was kind of an arrogant prick at work, but this was a whole different level of fucked up.
“Ava?”
She turned toward the voice behind us and I took in the beefy dark-haired alpha standing there with two bags of takeout he’d dropped at his feet. It took a few seconds before recognition flickered in her eyes.
“Luke? What are you doing here? Do you live here?”
He ignored her question and said instead, “Is this guy bothering you?”
He asked it about me and I instantly bristled.
“No, he’s?—”
“Her scent match.”
Ava’s eyes widened. Fuck. I wasn’t on blockers, but I had showered with a neutralizing wash after my flight had gotten in and it obviously hadn’t worn off yet. She didn’t know about the match because she couldn’t scent me. While I was entertaining thoughts of tossing myself into the fountains behind her to wash it all away, the other alpha approached her, my growl slipping out.
“You’re being a shit scent match if your omega is crying in the streets,” Luke snapped.
“Fuck you! I’m not the one who made her cry.”
I might’ve been the reason she found out, but I certainly wasn’t the one running around here with a secret family.
“You’re the only one around here,” Luke countered.
Ava let out a soft distress whine and we both instantly shut the fuck up, turning back to her. “It’s not his fault. We just met and he was trying to help.”
Luke looked suspiciously between the two of us. I tried not to take it personally. He was looking out for my omega, but I didn’t know him, and from the sounds of it, Ava hadn’t been expecting to see him.
“You just met and he’s asking a crying woman back to his room? Classy.”
I growled. “I was offering her the space. I wasn’t going to stay there with her.”
“Sure. Super believable.”
What was up with his asshole?
“Ava, you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked, much softer for her than he had been for me.
She spilled out the whole story, new tears falling, and Luke stood there dumbfounded, absorbing the details.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed. “I already quit my job and ended the lease on my apartment because I was supposed to move to New York at the end of the month.”
“I live in New York.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. She wasn’t going to want to move in with me either, but I wanted her to know that future was still a possibility.
Luke beat her to the punch. “I’m not letting her move in with someone she met today.”
“Who the hell even are you?” I snapped back.
“A family friend, not that it’s any of your business.”
“Luke and my brother were best friends growing up,” Ava explained. “I’ve known him my whole life, or at least I did before he moved away.”
At least that explained why he was so protective of her and she hadn’t expected him to be around.
“I don’t expect you to accept, Ava, but I want you to know the offer is there. We’re scent matches and I want to help. If you’re already planning on moving to the East Coast anyway, you could stay with me.”
“Aves, why don’t you come stay at my place tonight? It’s an apartment, but I can sleep on the couch. We can figure things out in the morning. Plus, I’ve got dinner ready to rock,” he said, picking up the bags of takeout.
“If you think I’m going to let her go anywhere alone with you, you are sadly mistaken. She might not know me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to protect her.”
Ava watched the two of us argue, lapsing into silence before her fingers slightly brushed my arm, electrifying my nerves and drawing all of my attention toward her. “Are we really scent matches?”
“Pretty sure. If we stop by the pharmacy I can get some wipes, try to get rid of the neutralizing wash I used.”
She looked plaintively at Luke. “Where’s the nearest pharmacy?”
“Basically across the street,” he replied, following his words with a hefty sigh. “Let’s go, then.”
Luke transferred the takeout bags to one hand and took Ava’s hand with the other, prompting me to take her other hand. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t like he could sprint off into the night dragging her after him, but holding on to her made me feel better.
The three of us slinked through the pharmacy to the scent care section. They had a lot of neutralizing options, but not much to neutralize the neutralizers. Instead, I picked up some foam soap and baby wipes, scrubbing the shit out of my wrist until the skin was pink and my natural scent released—cranberries with a hint of rum.
Luke watched with narrowed eyes as I offered my wrist to Ava and she took a cautionary sniff, her spine straightening and her pupils dilating. “ Oh .”
Relief almost took me out at the knees. She knew. That alone upped my chances with her and gave me an advantage over Luke. Scent matches didn’t really have any authority, not until a bond happened, but now that Ava knew, she would want to be around me as much as I wanted to be around her.
“Scent match or not, I’m not letting her go to your hotel,” Luke spat.
“But you want me to let her go to your apartment?”
“She knows me.”
I ignored him and turned to her. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”
“Almost seven years, I think? He moved away when I was sixteen.”
Luke looked guilty as hell about that. I had no idea what their past situation was, but it had no bearing on her present or future. He huffed a sigh. “You can come too, I guess. I have to get this food home and I’m not letting her go anywhere alone with you.”
Deep breaths.
He was trying to protect her as much as I was, and I could respect that even if I didn’t like it very much.
“I’ll come with you if Ava wants to go.” I focused back on her, taking her hand in mine again. “Tell me what you want to do.”
“I want somewhere to rest for a while. I wouldn’t mind catching up with Luke, but I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable.”
“Don’t worry about either of us. You’re the only one I’m worried about right now.”
Ava offered me a soft, tentative smile. I wasn’t going to push her for anything, even if my mouth did run away with me sometimes. She wasn’t even an hour out of having her whole life turned upside down, and I had to be patient, supportive.
I grumbled to myself the entire drive back to Luke’s apartment. The only upside was that I got to sit in the backseat with Ava where she leaned against me, subtly breathing me in. Every breath would anchor us together a bit more, and now that her scent wasn’t so sharply distressed, a sweet nuttiness saturated the air inside the car. Luke’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel the whole drive.
The building he parked at seemed well-maintained. It didn’t look like anything fancy, which was a far cry from the penthouse apartment I had in Tribeca.
“I have two roommates,” Luke explained as we rode the elevator up to the third floor. “Micah is probably just waking up, and Jesse should be home from work soon if he’s not already.”
Ava hesitated getting off the elevator after hearing others would be there.
“They’re both pack, Aves. I promise they’re great guys.”
She clung to my hand as we navigated the hall and slipped into a mostly tidy unit. It looked lived in, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but was also very different from the places I was used to frequenting. I didn’t want to be here, and I didn’t want Ava to be here either. I wanted to abandon the conference and squirrel her away in my New York apartment, where I could get to know her and take care of her.
Having someone else get in the way was not part of the plan.