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CHAPTER 25
“Idon’t think IvanBennington is going to be a problem for you anymore.” I said with a laugh as Adair and I sat in traffic on the way home. Night had long ago fallen and we were finally on our way back to San Francisco after the longest day of my life.
I don’t think I fully realized just how much work Adair was doing during the day when he was in Sacramento. He always had so much energy whenever he came home, even now he was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, still full of pent-up energy. After an entire day of watching him, I had come to a realization that Adair Carter was the epitome of an extrovert. Being around people and talking to them all day just gave him more energy and keyed him up so that he could keep going, even after he got home from work.
“You think?” Adair asked, reaching across the center console and sliding his fingers into mine before pulling our conjoined hands back over to rest on top of his muscular thigh. “He did look a little worse for wear after the interview, didn’t he?”
I scoffed, worse for wear was one way to put it. Adair had told me that Ivan Bennington had been avoiding a face-to-face debate with Adair like the plague, and I finally understood why. The man had crumpled under the slightest pressure about his platform and policies. His platform which could best be summarized as ‘there isn’t anythingwrongwith California, why fix what isn’t broken?’ Which might have worked, if the San Francisco Omega Academy’s seedy dealingshadn’tjust been exposed for the world to see.
By the end of the debate, Bennington had looked like a deflated balloon. He had received more than one sympathetic look on his way out. On the other hand, Adair had received congratulations.
Pride had filled my chest as I watched him, and it had only grown when he reached for my hand in front of everyone and had led me out of the station. I was pretty sure that it was going to bite us in the ass later, and our relationship’s anonymity now had a best by date, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. Adair was a possessive alpha. He wanted everyone in the world to know that I belonged to him, and I wanted to preen under his possessiveness like a sunflower turning towards the sun.
“Your advice was great too,” Adair said and gave my fingers a squeeze. “I know that you think that your ‘fake-smile’ is a bad thing, but I really think it’s also your strength too.” He brought the back of my hand to his lips and gave it a gentle kiss.
“Isn’t it weird that I...I don’t know, smile all the time? Even though I’m not happy?” I had spent so long putting on a smiley exterior thinking that people would leave me if I showed my true self, that I’d come to hate it. But seeing how it had helped Adair today, I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“I mean, I would hope that you don’t feel like you need to do it around those who love you. But even if you did, how you choose to protect yourself is your prerogative.” Love. He’d used the ‘L-word.’ My heart began to thud in my chest.
Did he include himself, and Rio in that group of people?And Marcus?My mind added quietly. I was sure that Marcus didn’t love me, but after what had happened in the living room a few days ago, I was at least pretty sure that he didn’t hate me anymore. Which was a win in my book because I definitely wanted a repeat performance from the British alpha.
I wanted to push him to elaborate on ‘those who love you,’ but instead I just smiled. We had time to figure it out, and there was no sense in trying to rush things.
“Things are going great.” I said to Tibby as we watched Cherry play on the tire swing that Ric and Theo had spent the entire day putting up for her. We were sitting together at the outdoor table in the backyard of Pack Russo’s Sausalito house, enjoying the warm weather. Spring had sprung early in San Francisco, and the sun shone brightly overhead despite the fact that it was only mid-April.
“What things are going great?” Eloise asked as she came out onto the patio carrying a tray of iced tea. She put it down on the table and slid into the seat next to where Vivi was sleeping in her stroller. She was still worn out from our walk earlier and I smiled as her face scrunched in her sleep.
“Madeline and hermen.” Tibby wagged her eyebrows suggestively and Eloise laughed, pressing a hand over her mouth to try and hide it. I stuck my tongue out at both of them.
“As opposed to you two andyourveritable harems?” I teased back, using the term that most romance novels used for packs. “I’ve only got two. Tibby you’ve got four, and Eloise you’ve gotsix.”
“Yes but yours arenew,and I’ve had nothing new to read lately. Mama is in need of some new material, so gimme.” Tibby gave the table a light slap, and I just rolled my eyes. She had her hands full with her pack and Cherry, she didn’t need any of the sordid details of my (admittedly active) sex life.
“I thought that you had something going on with Marcus too?” Eloise said, surprising me with her curiosity. I usually had to fend off Tibby’s questions, but it wasn’t like Eloise to pry. I could see concern in her brown eyes, the same concern that had been there when I first told her about my surprise kiss with Marcus in the living room almost three weeks ago.
I shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. The man is working all of the time, so I hardly ever see him unless I bump into him in the hallway in the middle of the night.”
“And how does he look at you when that happens?” Tibby asked, her eyes on my face as she sipped on her glass of iced tea.
I had no answer for them except to blush. Everytime that I had run into Marcus in the hallway, he looked sleep rumpled and delicious. Our meetings were quick and we usually just passed one another without a word, but the way his eyes followed me down the hallway? It gave me goosebumps to think about even now, and I had to rub my arms to smooth them out.
“Ooh, that good huh?” Tibby cackled, and even Eloise smiled softly at me.
It was that good, which was why everything else that Marcus Whitlock did was incredibly confusing. If he liked me, shouldn’t he be pursuing me? Everytime I broached the subject with Rio or Adair, they just shrugged and told me that it would take time. That something had happened to Marcus when he was younger that made it hard for him to connect with others, but they never elaborated further.
“I don’t know what to think,” I replied honestly. “Though I’m sure I’ll find out in the next few months.” Adair was starting what he liked to call an appearance circuit and needed his pack with him to represent at parties. My heart still gave a happy pitter patter that he considered me to be a part of his pack, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous.
News of our connection had spread after his debate with Ivan Bennington, but we still hadn’t come out and announced it ourselves. We would do that at our first gala which was only a week away. My brain swung wildly between excited anticipation and an unending dread over the idea of stepping out in the public eye with Pack Carter officially.
There’s no going back after that. What if you ruin everything?My little voice had whispered to me on a near constant loop.
“I’m envious that you get to wear all of those fancy gowns,” Eloise said, and her expression was nostalgic. Probably from the time that I’d dressed her for the several galas that she’d attended with Pack Russo two years ago. “But I don’t envy having to interact with all of those people.”
Pack Russo and Pack Simmons would be making appearances at some of the parties and galas over the next few months, but not all of them.
“I’m excited, I’ve never gotten to go to any fancy parties. Aria and I have already been going through the dresses that you sent us, Madeline.” Tibby’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
Even though I didn’t work at Poleman’s anymore, I still loved putting together outfits, and Tibby’s pack had been a lot of fun to work with. I’d coordinated all of their outfits by color, and Aria’s eyes had lit up with appreciation when I showed her the slides of pictures.
