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Yeah, her smile broke free. Another woman might have been annoyed that he wasn’t showering her with reassurances and comforting words, but Bree didn’t need soppy sentiments. She preferred the raw, sweet, honest declarations he occasionally spouted—even if they were often accompanied by him accusing her of being stupid or something.
She gently poked his chest. “You’re almost as great as snow cones. And they’re awesome.”
“They are.” His eyes drifted over her face, intense and broody. He gave a satisfied nod. “You’re good,” he decided.
“I’m good.” But her stomach was still in knots. It would probably stay that way until the moment Paxton had been apprehended—something that needed to happen soon, or both she and her cat were liable to lose their shit.
“Okay, ladies, I’d say we’re done here,” said Dani, closing her notebook. “Thank you all for coming, and I’ll see you at the next meeting if not before.”
Like the other omegas, Bree pushed away from the table and headed for the break room door. She was super eager to get out of there and get back to Alex.
“Bree,” Dani called out, standing. “Could we talk a moment?”
Oh, wonderful. “Sure.” Holding the strap of her purse, Bree held back as the others filed out of the room. Dani hadn’t made a single snarky comment toward her during the meeting. Which had felt weird, to be honest. But there was something a little different about the primary today. She seemed more at ease with herself. Still, Bree’s cat watched her warily, flexing her claws.
Once they were finally alone, Dani rounded the table and raised a placatory hand. “I’m not going to pick a fight. I just … I have some news that I’d like to share with you.” She swiped her tongue over her lower lip. “I thought you should know that I’ve asked Vinnie to transfer me to another pride.”
Almost rocking back on her heels, Bree blinked. “Transfer you?”
“As much as I hate to admit it, I can’t keep the position of primary here. And I’m too young to retire, so he’s going to find me a pride that’s in need of a primary omega like me. I’ll be briefing everyone else on my decision soon. I wanted you to be one of the first to know because, well, it’s going to substantially affect you. You’ll need to take over as primary—it wouldn’t have been fair to spring that on you.”
Since when had Dani cared about what would be “fair” to Bree? “What brought all this on?”
“I had a talk with Rose. She made me take a good, long look at the way I’ve been acting lately. I was a little dismissive of her at first. I guess I didn’t want to hear it; didn’t want to face that you were right—I had changed. Worse, I’d changed into someone I didn’t like. Rose kept on at me until I listened. And she made me realize that I’ve been selfish and petty and a bunch of other things lately.” Dani looked at the floor. “It’s hard to let go of something when you spent years of your life imagining it would be yours.”
Bree had a vague idea of how that hard it must have been. She’d spent a long, long time wishing Alex would be hers. It had hurt when she’d forced herself to face that it wouldn’t happen. If she’d spent her life feeling sure that Alex would be hers, just as Dani was sure she’d hold the position of primary, the pain would have been crippling. If someone had then come along and tried to take Alex from her in the same way that Dani felt Bree was trying to take the primary role from her, Bree wouldn’t have reacted too well either.
“Rose made me see that I could still have the position,” Dani went on, meeting her eyes again. “I just can’t have it here. It belongs to you now; I was fighting a losing battle by opposing that. I wasn’t as angry at you as I must have seemed. I was angry at fate. It just didn’t seem fair that someone who didn’t even want the position was going to take it from me, especially when I’d only had it for a decade. I took that out on you; made you into the bad guy in my head. It was a real shitty thing to do, and I’m sorry.”
Damn if that apology didn’t sound totally genuine.
“I’d convinced myself I was doing the best thing for the pride. But the truth? I just didn’t want to lose my position. It’s not an excuse, I know, but I grew up thinking I had an inborn purpose to be primary. I trained hard for it, I poured everything I was into it. It just …” Her brow creased, and tears filled her eyes. “I don’t know who I am without it.”
