I have a plan. Sonny and I will be back in a couple of hours.
Crossing my fingers that Sonny had the situation and his brother under control, I wiped my fingers and then dropped my crumpled napkin on the empty plate, pressing a kiss to Jules’s neck before standing with him in my arms and carefully placing him back in the seat.
He raised a brow but didn’t comment and I grabbed a free chair from the table and set it across from the Hunter, hopefully far enough that he wouldn’t feel intimidated.
“Connery,” I tried to keep my tone firm but gentle, leaning towards the approach I usually saved for abused Omegas who were meeting me for the first time. “Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?”
Connery cast a quick glance at Jules who nodded encouragingly. “Um, sure.”
“Thank you.” There is no polite way to ask some questions, so I barreled ahead. “Are you a shifter?”
Connery’s eyes widened comically, and his head bobbed back and forth so fast that it couldn’t have been healthy. “No! What…no!”
“It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “I just needed to ask.”
“That’s why you were being nice to me,” he mumbled, his head dropping. “You thought I was like you.”
“No,” I said quickly, afraid he was about to spiral and undo the tenuous progress that Jules had made. “We’ve just had a couple of unidentified shifters around in the last few days, so I had to ask. I actually didn’t think you were, to be honest.”
“You didn’t?” When he peeked up at me through his lashes, I shrugged.
“Not to be rude but humans carry a fairly distinctive scent.” I winked at him, and he forgot to be wary and rolled his eyes. “One more question?”
Connery nodded.
“Did you by any chance slide some papers under the door to one of the cottages last night?”
“Me? No, why?” There was no way he was faking his confusion.
“We found them not too long after we found you, so I’m just covering our bases,” I said vaguely. Standing to return the chair to its customary spot, I saw Jules watching me with a slight frown on his face. “Walk me back to my office?”
“Sure.”
Tossing our empty plate in the trash, he glanced at the leftover food on the table. “What should I do with this?”
“Just leave it,” I suggested. “I’ll have Nan send out an email to the staff and it’ll be gone before you know it.”
Nodding, Jules followed me out into the hall.
“What’s wrong? Was I too hard on Connery?” I asked.
“Hm? No, of course not,” Jules assured me. “He didn’t seemed scared to me.”
“Then why are you upset?”
“I’m not,” Jules disputed before sighing. “I’m confused and I need to tell you something that I’m not entirely sure how you’ll feel about.”
Stopping in my tracks, I pulled him around to face me. “What?”
“Those papers that Kade found,” he sighed. “I’m the one who left them. I honestly thought you knew.” He shook his head, biting down on his bottom lip. “Didn’t I sign them?”
“No,” I said slowly, “there wasn’t any signature on them. Why did you shove them under Kade’s door instead of just talking to me?”
Jules sighed. “You were sucking face with the hot little Omega, remember?”
I choked on my spit at that. “I was mostdefinitely notdoing anything of the sort!” I denied hotly. “It was a friendly kiss, and his husband wasright there!”
Jules snorted. “I know thatnowbut at the time, I didn’t,” he pointed out. “So, there was no way I was going to talk to you about it. Hell, I was planning on hopping a train home today when I laid down on the couch last night.”
