Page 122 of Pack Baby for the Silver Foxes

I handed the assistant the muslins before Hudson could argue.

We left the shop nearly an hour later with bags, delivery forms, a stroller order, and one horrifying giraffe lamp wrapped in tissue paper. Sienna stood outside beside the car, scanning the street until Mary held up the lamp box.

“We bought a cursed giraffe.”

Sienna looked at it. “For protection?”

Mary brightened. “Exactly. It’ll give someone one hell of a headache.”

“Good choice.”

Hudson sighed.

We drove back toward the penthouse with Mary between us in the back seat because she’d said the front made her nauseated. Her head rested on my shoulder. Her feet were in Hudson’s lap. Hudson had one hand wrapped around her ankle, thumb moving slowly over the bone there as London slid past the windows.

I looked over her head at Hudson. His eyes met mine.

“Forever,” he mouthed.

I closed my hand around Mary’s.

She stirred. “Are you two communicating silently above my head?”

“No,” Hudson said.

“Liar.”

“Yes,” I said.

She smiled without opening her eyes. “Good. Saves time.”

Her phone rang.

Mary lifted her head, blinking. She fumbled in the pocket of her coat and looked at the screen and all the color left her face.

Hudson’s hand tightened around her ankle. “Mary?”

She stared at the screen. “My Da is calling me.”

Her scent changed into something older than fear and colder than panic.

Da. Callum McCarthy was calling.

Chapter 21

Mary

My father never left a message when he first rang me two days ago, nor did he leave one the other five times.

No message meant I didn’t know why he was calling.

I hadn’t answered. My bones remembered him, anyway. They remembered standing in rooms with expensive carpets while men discussed me as a future acquisition. They remembered my father’s voice going soft when he wanted obedience, because Callum McCarthy never wasted anger when affection could do more damage. They remembered the way I’d once wanted to make him proud so badly that I’d mistaken fear for love.

Two days later, I stood in the penthouse bedroom with my hand on the edge of my half-built nest and knew I needed my sister.

Not by phone, and not through texts where Maeve could send a knife emoji and tell me to breathe.

I found Hudson and Lincoln in the study.