Chapter 25 #2
Cole hangs up the phone. He crosses to the island, and I look up at him, fork halfway to my mouth. His face has not changed, but his shoulders are different. Tighter.
“There was an event flagged on the building’s surveillance overnight,” he says, quiet enough that only we can hear. “I need to handle it in person at Frostwood Tower. I’ll see you later, Lia.”
“Okay,” I say, and he gives me a quick kiss on the lips before he disappears out the door.
Ezra closes his laptop and makes his way over to me. He kisses my neck, just below my ear, and I get horny immediately, my pussy clenching despite how sore I am. I lean into him, my voice going soft and flirty.
“If you knot me, I will never be able to leave the house.”
His hand finds my waist, thumb pressing into the soft flesh there.
“What if I do not want you to leave?” he murmurs against my hair. His mouth is hot and demanding, his tongue sliding against mine, his hand cradling the back of my head. The kiss goes on and on, stealing my breath, making my heart pound against my ribs.
When he pulls back, his gray eyes are dark.
“I will make up for it tonight,” he says, and his voice is rough before he leaves the penthouse too.
Julian and August are left at the island with me. Julian is sipping his coffee, watching me with that warm, knowing look.
“We are going to drive you to the shop,” he says, easy as anything. “Not going to let you escape.”
I grumble, setting down my fork. “I do not need to be babysat. You put in all that security. It should be enough.”
“No, no, no, beautiful,” Julian tsks, and he is suddenly behind me, his hands finding my hips as I stand to wash my dishes.
He kisses me while I am standing at the sink, my hands in soapy water, his mouth hot and distracting.
“We are going to go with you because we like spending time with you. Not because you need us to.”
I make a soft sound against his lips, and he pulls back, grinning. I text Mira while Julian and August argue about who’ll be driving.
Meet at my shop at 8:30
!!!
She responds with three exclamation points and a photo of a pastry box that makes my stomach growl despite the breakfast I just ate. I laugh, the sound bright in the quiet kitchen.
We pile into Julian’s car.
I sit in the back with August, his hand in mine, while Julian drives. The morning is warm and overcast, the river below the bridge the color of slate. August’s thumb traces patterns on my palm, and Julian hums along to something on the radio, and I let myself be held between them, safe and warm.
The new security panel at Marsh Florals reads my palm and lets us in.
The bell over the door rings, familiar and welcome, and I step into my shop and breathe the green-stem, old-wood smell of it and feel my chest unclench. The shop is exactly as I left it. The peonies in the cooler are still beautiful, their heads heavy and pink.
The chalkboard sign needs rewriting.
I walk through my morning routine—turning on the lamp behind the counter, opening the cooler, refilling buckets that need water, flipping the sign on the door to OPEN.
Julian and August trail behind me, doing whatever I ask.
Julian sets up the chalkboard sign on the sidewalk while I rewrite it in my looping handwriting: yellow ranunculus, white anemone, sweet pea, peonies.
The chalk dusts my fingertips. I blow it off.
Mira shows up at eight twenty with a pastry box and a face that is going to ask me approximately three hundred questions. She sets the box on the counter. “Tell me about the proposal.”
I tell her between ringing up customers, between Julian wrapping bouquets passably and August handling the register with surprising competence. I tell her about each alpha’s small speech. The four kisses. The takeout on the floor.
Mira sighs, her hand over her heart. “You are going to have the grandest wedding ever.”
“I don’t know about that,” I groan. “I don’t have family or anything.”
“We’ll make it work,” she says determinedly before heading back to her bakery.
“You guys really don’t have to work,” I insist when the customers leave.
“You’re our omega, and if you choose to work, we’re going to help,” says Julian without question, and August nods as he puts away the returned flowers.
My phone rings at ten twenty. The wholesale supplier. I answer, holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder while I tie off a bouquet.
“Is someone coming to pick up your order?” the supplier asks.
I blink, my fingers stilling on the ribbon. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I tell him.
“I received an email last night from your account asking to reroute today’s delivery from a doorstep drop to a pickup at the warehouse in Red Hook. The email has your name.”
I stare at Julian across the shop. He has gone very still, his hazel eyes fixed on my face, reading something in my expression that makes him set down the scissors in his hand.
“Umm, let me call you back about that,” I say, hanging up and immediately opening my email on my phone, my hands cold.
The ‘sent’ folder shows an email I did not send to the supplier the night before at eleven forty-three, asking exactly what the driver had described.
The email is perfect. The phrasing is mine. The signature is mine.
My stomach drops. Julian is already on the phone with Cole.
I can hear Cole’s voice on the other end, going clipped and fast, asking questions I cannot quite make out. Julian is asking him to pull the building’s security footage from my apartment from the previous afternoon and run it against every Frostwood email account to flag any access.
Julian hangs up. He looks at me, his face calm but his jaw tight.
“Someone spoofed your email,” he says. “I am going to handle it. I am going to drive to Red Hook myself to pick up the delivery, just in case it’s a trap. We’ll figure out the rest from there. It is going to be okay.”
“I want to come with you,” I say, but he is already shaking his head.