"Sit for five minutes," he whispers. "I've got the kids. Luther has Blake. Maceo's checking the car."
"I need to review Wilson's notes before the meeting."
"You can review them sitting down."
The answer should be easy. The chair's three feet away. The coffee's hot. The kids are dressed. Blake's no longer typing. Luther's watching him with that patient, dangerous focus that means the phone won't survive much longer in Blake's hand. Maceo's got Rosalie's bag over one shoulder and Samuel's coat in his hand. The morning's moving whether I keep pushing it or not.
"I'm fine," I say again, because it's the shape my mouth knows how to make.
Luca's expression softens, but he lets me have the lie for now. He squeezes my wrist once and turns toward the children, calling for shoes in a voice bright enough to gather them without startling anyone.
I lift the coffee and drink. It's hot enough to sting my tongue, bitter and grounding. I keep the mug close as I turn toward the table, already reaching for Wilson's marked-up pages.
Across the kitchen, Luther's gaze finds me. His eyes move over my face, the tightness around my smile, the way my hand grips the mug a little too hard, the pause before I bend to help James with his shoes. He sees the exhaustion under the movement, the strain beneath the easy voice I use for the children.
I smile at him anyway.
Luther doesn't smile back.
And that, more than the cold coffee, tells me I haven't hidden nearly as much as I thought.
6
Luther
The boardroom on the tenth floor of Keller Industries usually smells like coffee, polished wood, and climate-controlled air. Today, before Victor Hale and Dorian Vale even arrive, the room feels wrong.
Blake stands beside the long table with the pitch deck open on his tablet, his thumb pressed hard against the edge of the case. The morning light catches on his glasses and hides his eyes from me for a moment, but I don't need to see them clearly to knowwhere his head is. I've been watching him carry the insult since the email first came through. He'd read the organizational slide twice, gone very still, and closed the deck without saying a word until Grayson forced food in front of him. Founder and Creative Lead. Principal Authority and Executive Liaison. Two titles arranged on a page like Keller Industries began in my hands and Blake merely colored in the edges.
He hasn't stopped thinking about it. Neither have I.
"They called me a fucking creative lead," Blake says under his breath.
His voice is quiet, but there's nothing small in it. Anger cuts through the exhaustion hard enough to put color high in his cheeks. He looks pale beneath it, too thin in the shoulders, his shirt sitting looser than I like. The dark circles under his eyes make my hand want to reach for the back of his neck before my brain catches up with the instinct.
"They put my name under yours," he continues, the words flatter now, which makes them worse. "Like I make the pretty things and you decide what happens to them."
My hand settles at the back of his neck, thumb resting against the tense line there. He doesn't lean into it, but he doesn't pull away either. That's enough in this room, with glass walls around us and the elevator already moving somewhere beyond the corridor.
"Then we'll make sure they understand who's in charge."
Blake's mouth tightens. "I don't need you to fight the room for me."
"I know." I bend closer, keeping my voice low enough that it belongs only to him. "I'll redirect them when they forget who built this company. I'll only take over if you ask me to, if they cross a line, or if I think you're about to pass out."
His eyes narrow behind his glasses. "I'm not going to pass out, Alpha."
The laugh that moves through me is quiet and too heavy to become anything bright. "I'll be the judge of that until you start eating regular meals again."
Blake looks like he wants to argue, but his hand lifts to adjust his glasses, and I see the fine tremor in his fingers before he hides it against the tablet. His anger's real. So is the exhaustion underneath it. I squeeze the back of his neck once, then let go before the touch becomes something he has to lean on in front of strangers.
He draws in a slow breath. When he exhales, his shoulders settle by a fraction. “Damn right it is.”
The conference room door opens before I can answer.
Victor Hale enters first, as if arriving second still somehow gives him the right to claim the room. Dorian Vale follows half a step behind him with a leather folio tucked beneath one arm and the pitch deck already open on his tablet. Victor’s gaze moves to me before it touches Blake, a small choice dressed up as habit. Old-guard Alpha manners, polished enough to pass as courtesy and pointed enough that I feel Blake go still beside me.
Victor extends his hand to me. “Luther. Thank you for making the time. I know how many pressures sit on a family operation at this scale.”
