Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
NELL
"There," Addie said quietly. She pointed to a girl who would've given Paris Hilton a run through Tiffany's.
Rosalind Lobo came through the main entrance of the Four Seasons in a cloud of expensive pink luggage, dark suited security, and the careless ease of a woman who had never been required to do anything for herself.
She was pretty. Objectively, undeniably pretty; tall, with the kind of bone structure that photographed well and would age well.
Her hair was dark and glossy. Where I had just been handed the title of pack princess, she looked born to it.
I wondered if her diapers were silk. A thousand count cotton that would be discarded after use.
She was wearing sunglasses inside. One of her wolves stepped forward to take her bag before it had fully left her hand.
Another moved ahead to clear the path to the elevator.
A third was already at the panel, pressing the button, holding the door.
Rosalind walked through the parted sea of her own detail with serene unawareness of the choreography that made her existence possible.
I hated her instantly.
Magnus had said he had a weakness for intelligent women. Rosalind Lobo, from this distance, looked like a woman who had never been required to count to two because everything she had ever needed had been handled for her. Which was not her fault. But it was also definitively not Magnus's type.
He was going to be miserable.
"Penthouse is on the twentieth floor," said Addie. "You good with stairs?"
"I'm a panther. Remember that time I took you to the climbing gym?"
"No, because I canceled and pretended I was banging Chris Peters in Accounting. Wolves don't climb."
"I knew you were lying about Peters. An accountant? Really, Addie."
"Vidar is excellent with numbers."
"Ughh. Spare me."
"You know the two of you are going to have to get along if you're going to his sister-in-law."
I still wasn't onboard with the whole marriage thing. Or the alpha female thing. I just knew I wanted to be with Magnus. So, I followed behind my best friend and climbed up the service stairs.
The penthouse corridor had two Lobo wolves at the far end and one positioned near the elevator. Addie assessed this with the brisk attention of a woman who had grown up watching pack security operate and understood its patterns.
"Shift change will be in four minutes," she said. "The one by the elevator will step away to check in. That's our window."
"How do you know this?"
"I grew up in a hotel with a wolf for a father. I've been studying security rotations since I was eight." She glanced at me. "Ready?"
Rosalind's suite was larger than my apartment.
She was standing at the window when we came in.
Still in the sunglasses, which she was apparently committed to.
Her coat was not yet removed. Her hands were loose at her sides.
She didn't turn when we entered. "You don't smell like handlers.
" The sunglasses made her expression difficult to read, which I suspected was the point.
"My name is Nell Odhiambo. This is Addie Blackwood. We're here to rescue you."
"From what?" Rosalind snorted. "The lap of luxury."
"From your upcoming marriage," I said. "You don't have to do this. You don't have to marry Magnus Blackwood. We can help you get out."
"That's very sweet of you. But, no." Rosalind shrugged out of her coat and let it fall to the floor, as though she expected someone else to pick up after her.
I looked at the coat lying on the ground, then at her. "No?"
"No," she said, with the pleasant finality of a woman closing a door. "The Elsa and Ana of it all is cute; sisters coming to the rescue. But I'm going to marry the Blackwood Alpha."
Something dropped in my chest. It was the descent of a floor giving way; fast, complete, the kind of internal event that clarified everything it touched.
I wanted to marry Magnus.
The knowledge arrived with a flat certainty.
The way I had known in the cabin that I was going to help him commit corporate espionage simply because he'd challenged me.
The way I had known in the elevator that I was going to spend more than one night with him.
The way I had known on the boat that I would've done anything, said anything to make sure he got back on dry land alive.
I wanted to marry Magnus Blackwood.
I wanted the eggs in the morning. I wanted him to make me beg for my orgasms. I wanted his knot to keep me attached to him after he made me whimper and cry out. I wanted his name next to mine on the company sign.
I wanted all of it.
Well, maybe not all. I still wasn't sure about kids.
This messy, sunglass wearing, bitch was in my way. Not for long.
A growl rose up in my throat. Something pricked at my fingertips. A popping sound came loud as I rolled my head around neck.
"Easy, girl." Addie rested a hand on my shoulders.
I ignored my bestie and focused on the bitch. "You've never met him. You can't love him. You don't know him."
"Love is for fairytales," Rosalind said. "Marriage is strategy."
"He's a person, not a strategy."
"He's an Alpha and an exit. The only exit I have. From my mother. From the Lobo compound. It's out in the sticks… Jersey." Rosalind stage whispered the state. "It could be Magnus. It could be his sister. I don't care. Unless you can offer me a way to get away from my mother, Magnus is it."
Speak of the devil. The door opened. Sorsha Lobo stepped inside wearing her Prada heels.
She was in the same dark coat from the boat. Her eyes moved across the room with the rapid, comprehensive assessment of a predator who had walked into a situation and was already three moves ahead of it. They landed on Rosalind. On Addie. On me.
On me, they stopped.
"Ms. Odhiambo, I thought our business was concluded on the river. I can't imagine what you might want with Magnus Blackwood's fiancée."
A raise of the voice at the end of a sentence implied a question. Sorsha Lobo didn't raise her voice at any part in that statement.
"We came to speak to you about a business proposition," I said.
"What business is that?"
"I was behind the Volki liquidation. Three billion in assets, dissolved in three hours."
"Are you threatening me, Ms. Odhiambo."
Again, no inflection. The weight of her stare reminded me of my grandmother.
"No, ma'am."
Sorsha's gaze narrowed on me, the same way Mei Ling's had done back in her kitchen when she clearly knew something was going on between me and her son.
"You are a brilliant woman, Mrs. Lobo," I said.
"You have been building the Lobo pack's power for decades through exactly the kind of strategic patience that most men—most Alphas—don't have.
You understand that the real power is in the infrastructure, not the teeth.
You would rather have me as an ally than as an enemy. I think you know that."
Sorsha smiled, a wolf's smile complete with a flash of her teeth. Again, I felt the prickles at my fingertips.
"A compelling argument," she said. "You are not wrong about the business.
But packs don't build loyalty through business proposals, Ms. Odhiambo.
Packs build loyalty through marriage. Through blood.
Through the kind of bond that doesn't dissolve when the market changes.
" She spread her hands. "I need a Blackwood.
I have been promised a Blackwood. That is what secures the alliance. "
"It doesn't have to be Magnus," I said. "Magnus isn't the only unmarried Blackwood male."