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“Yeah,” she said. “But I had to interview them a lot for that piece. We talked about everything under the sun. They told me if they were going to let someone into their anonymous bubble, it needed to be raw and honest and not just paint them as cookie cutter people.”
She wasn’t wrong. The huge feature—which had ended up on the front page of her magazine—was incredible. It was the reason she’d convinced me to call them in the first place, despite her giving me their phone number breaking her NDA and possibly endangering her job. She’d painted them as polite, commanding, and intelligent. Caring and not simply men who would fuck you for money.
They were every one of those things.
But it didn’t change the fact that we had an arrangement, and we were hurtling toward the expiration date, no matter if I wished we weren’t.
“Meeting them and talking with them was the reason I knew they’d be good for you. Because I’m telling you, when they talked about their clients, they spoke with polite distance. The way you speak about acquaintances or those ‘friends’ from work who you know but you’d never see in any other situation. When they spoke about them, notoncedid they look they way they do when they look at you.”
“But—” I put my hands on my hips and leaned over, taking a breath because my chest felt fucking tight. “You didn’t see themwitha client. Maybe this…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words out loud. That maybe they were like this with everybody, because the ideahurt.
“Or maybe they want you, and you’re letting Beau get in the way because you’re scared of a repeat,” Ocean said.
I glared at her, and she glared right back. I hated that she wasn’t wrong. I was terrified of getting hurt again. Because as much as Beau’s actions did hurt me, I already knew the St. James pack doing the same would destroy me in a way I would not recover from. So I had to keep my distance.
Had to.
A soft knock on the closet door saved me. I pulled it open and found Rowan staring down at me. His eyes followed the lines of the dress, and he smiled. “Your car is here.”
“Thank you.”
I made sure the girls were decent before I let the door fall the rest of the way open.
They grinned at me as I stepped out. “I know. It’s something.”
“I love it,” Vaughn said. “You’re like a shiny present for me to unwrap.”
A flush stained my cheeks, and Ocean nudged me with her elbow like she was sayingI told you so.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to drive you?” Cade asked.
Trinity waved a hand. “The car’s already here. We’ll be fine.” She looped her arms through both Ocean’s and mine, any tension from the closet forgotten. “Now let’s go bowl like absolute shit.”
We laughed as she pulled us out of the room, but I couldn’t help but notice every one of the Alpha’s eyes remained on me until we were out of sight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
________
ROWAN
The three Omegas left the room, and I shook my head with a smile. The dresses together were horrendous, but in a good way. Joel laughed quietly.
“If Trinity breaking her NDA hadn’t brought us to Isolde, I would be pissed at her.”
Me too.
The interview we did with the Omega reporter had business knocking down our door the last few months, but through our website. Where we were still anonymous. People didn’t get our private number unless they knew us, or after they signed an NDA. I’d never been so glad someone broke their word—risking both their reputation and career. Would we ever have met Isolde otherwise? Unlikely. The thought made my heart hurt.
Vaughn put a hand on my shoulder and nodded toward the Veranda. I followed him. “What’s up?”
“Willing to help me with something?”
“For the last time, I’m not going to help you bury a body,” I said with a grin.
He snorted. “Funny.”
“What is it?”
