It’s not my phone. It’s coming from the living room.
Diego freezes. I see his shoulders go tense.
“What is that?” I ask.
“The line from the lobby,” he says, his voice a low, flat line. “Someone’s buzzing the penthouse.”
I frown. “Is that... unusual?”
Tristan appears from the corridor, his face a grim mask, his phone in his hand. “It is,” he says, “when the person buzzing is a reporter from PackTrackr.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rett
I’m in my office when the penthouse intercom buzzes, a sharp, insistent sound that immediately sets my teeth on edge. No one buzzes the penthouse. No one. That’s the entire point of having a security team in the lobby and private elevator access.
My head snaps up from the quarterly reports I’ve been pretending to read. In reality, I’ve been staring at the same page for twenty minutes, distracted by the scent of Zoe that’s permeated every corner of this place.
The light, cherry blossom fragrance she wears clings to the pillows on the couch, lingers in the hallway, a soft, floral ghost that is a constant, maddening reminder that she’s here.
My senses have been trained on the kitchen. I heard their quiet conversation, the hiss of the coffee machine. Then... a different kind of silence. A sudden, sharp intake of breath followed by a heavy, charged quiet that was louder than any sound.
My jaw clenched. My hand tightened on my pen, snapping it in half. I didn’t know what was happening, but my alpha did.
The intercom buzzes again, longer this time. Insistent.
I’m on my feet before the sound stops, moving toward the living room. By the time I get there, Tristan is already there, his face a grim mask as he stares at the small panel by the door. Diego appears from the kitchen, looking rumpled and tense. And Zoe... Zoe is standing there with a coffee mug clutched in her hands, her eyes wide with confusion.
“What’s happening?” she asks, her voice small in the suddenly charged atmosphere.
“Stay here,” I tell her, and the words are a harsh rasp, the best I can manage when every instinct is screaming at me to snarl. Then I stride to the intercom panel, stabbing the button with a finger. “Sternam, this better be an emergency.”
“Mr. Sterling?—”
A chipper, feminine voice crackles through the speaker, cutting Sternam off. “Mr. Sterling! So sorry to bother you, I have a delivery for a Zoe Clarke?”
My eyes narrow, immediately flicking to the small video feed from the intercom panel on the wall. The woman on the screen is holding a massive bouquet, but it doesn’t hide her face. Not completely.
I know that face.
I’ve seen it staring out from a pixelated author photo at the bottom of a dozen salacious articles Dane forwarded to the pack. Tiffany Burns. The junior vulture from PackTrackr.
They’ve been running those blurry photos of Zoe, speculating about our “mysterious beta.” They even posted photos of us arriving at the gallery that night after the break-in, their headline a mix of “tragedy” and “romance.”
And based on Zoe’s calm demeanor this morning, her focus on the coffee and the burnt toast, I’d bet a controlling share in Sterling Solutions that Zoe has no idea the story is still front-page news. She thinks the world has moved on.
“How did you get past the front door?” My voice is cold as ice.
The reporter laughs, a tinkling sound that grates against my already frayed nerves. “Oh, don’t be mad at your security! I’m just delivering flowers! See? I have a delivery slip right here for Ms. Clarke!”
I catch Tristan’s eye. He mouths “Bullshit” at me, already pulling out his phone. Dane materializes from wherever he’d been, his expression thunderous as he picks up the house phone to call Sternam on the other line.
“There is no delivery,” I say into the intercom. “And you are trespassing on private property.”
“But I have flowers!” the reporter insists. “Beautiful carnations! Don’t you want to know who sent them to Ms. Clarke? It’s all very romantic.”
I feel rather than see Zoe step up beside me. Her scent is clean, with hints of the soap she used this morning, and it wraps around me, momentarily blunting the edge of my anger.
