Page 181 of Knot What I Expected

The woman immediately does. My stomach clenches. Lindsey looks back at me.

“It was fine until the night at the bar.”

My pulse stutters.

“What was?”

“He said I smelled like someone he remembered.”

The restaurant seems to get quieter around me. Or maybe I just stop hearing it.

“What are you talking about?”

“Then he did this! Now we have to postpone the wedding.”

She points at her bruised eye. My stomach drops.

“Who?”

Her face twists.

“The man I'm marrying!”

Cold creeps through me.

“He did this because of you!”

I jerk my wrist free.

“What?”

“He kept smelling me after I got home. Like a fucking animal.” Her voice cracks. “Wanted to know where I'd been. Who I'd been around. He hurt me,” she whispers in a voice that sounds broken and haunted.

Feathers.

Her man talking about a scent.

My hidden nature slams against my skin.

No.

Lindsey is breathing faster now.

“He said there was a scent on me he hadn't smelled in years.”

My blood turns to ice.

No.

No, no, no.

“He said the woman with that scent ran away with his son!”

The room tilts.

Matteo.

My baby.