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Nessa, then. I held the phone up, listening to it ring. She picked up instantly.
“Donovan, where are you? We were freaking because Val wasn’t answering her phone, and then Nicky called and said that little shit-turd Michael was in jail, and she was?—”
“It’s me, Nessa,” I interrupted. “I’m with Donovan.”
“Oh, thank god! Where are you? Are you safe? Are you hurt? Nicky said you weren’t well?—”
“I’m fine. Mostly.”
“Hang on,” Nessa half-shouted. I heard a click as she turned her phone’s speaker on, and suddenly Tori was blaring in my ear.
“We will never forgive ourselves, Val. Never.”
“Stop.” I sighed as they didn’t, just filled the line with a chorus of apologies, until I lost it. “Stop!” I yelled. “I need help.”
“Anything.”
I took a few calming breaths, then let it all spill out. “Donovan is my true mate.”
They both gasped, and I told them about the touch, and the trip here, and how I’d realized the truth of who he was to me, from the bedding. “I was going into heat, and he still wouldn’t touch me. He bought me a giant bag of sex toys, b-because he d-doesn’t… d-d-d-doesn’t want m-me.” I didn’t love how much I’d stuttered, but I was proud I hadn’t fallen apart, getting it out.
“Donovan?” Tori breathed. “Incredible Hulk-caveman-bodyguard Donovan, who stares at you so much while you sleep that our other brothers told Nicky about it and said he should be fired, and a restraining order filed? The bachelor alpha who has the world’s biggest crush on you, but won’t act on it because he’s an employee—that Donovan?”
“They reported him to Nicky?” I squeaked, shocked I hadn’t heard of any of this.
“Yeah, supposedly Nicky told them Donovan was practically a monk. Not one relationship in decades. Not even a single lover over the past ten years, nothing that he could find. Nicky thought he was asexual; that’s why he hired him.”
“You asked about him?”
“Well, yeah. Once we noticed how he stared at you, and how you were always trying to get a whiff of him…”
Nessa broke in. “Do you remember the rock you tripped over on the walk outside the Lodge at New Year? When you fell and cut your palms? Donovan hired a crew and spent an entire night replacing the sharp rocks with little, soft pea gravel. The man is obsessed with you, Valentine. He’s exactly what you need.”
Tori hmphed. “If you like that silver fox, Viking, stern Daddy vibe.”
The line went silent, and then to my shock, we all burst into laughter. We had amassed a collection of every single type of age-gap romance—from sweet to more-than-slightly depraved—and they knew it was my favorite trope. Both my sisters had teased me about wanting to call a man Daddy. They hadn’t known how right they were.
“Of course I like it.” I sighed once they’d mostly stopped giggling. “But I’m not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“He doesn’t want me. I’m too young, and he signed Nicky’s contract.”
“Oh, we can fix that. We’ll tell Nicky what’s going on?—”
“No!”
Nessa argued with me for a moment, then asked about the bag of sex toys, which she dubbed the best birthday present ever, and chattered in a way that was beginning to seem suspiciously like she was filling time… until Tori cleared her throat.
“Ah, Val? Nicky says he would like Donovan to call him. Now.”
“You didn’t.”
Of course she had. And she didn’t apologize, just went on about true mates, and Nicky being understanding since he’d found his.
“I will never forgive you,” I whispered.
She blew a raspberry into the phone. “You will. Anyway, I didn’t call Nicky. I called Candy, and she took care of it.”
