Tony frowned. “Are you all right?”
Not even remotely, I thought.
“I’m fine,” I said aloud. “Let’s go.”
I still felt like I’d been flattened by a steamroller, although getting some solid food in me had helped. My stomach sloshed around unpleasantly, but I gathered myself and walked out of the kitchen without stumbling. Tony hovered a step behind, and the two of us made our way to the last door on the left, leaving the alphas behind.
The office had the same understated elegance as most of the rest of the house—not counting that hateful room in the attic. There was a bit more clutter in here, as though it saw regular use. Idly, I wondered if there were any incriminating documents lying around.
Tony closed the door behind us.
Knowing it might send the wrong message—but needing a place to sit down before my precarious balance deserted me again, I pulled out the leather-upholstered rolling chair behind the desk and sank down in it. Rolling it forward, I rested my elbows on the desk blotter and pondered whether this was what being a rich CEO felt like.
I guessed not. If I’d been a rich CEO, my feet would probably have reached the floor.
There were two other chairs in the room, but instead of sitting down, Tony immediately started pacing back and forth across the rich carpet. He ran fingers through his messy black hair, not looking at me as he worked up to saying whatever he wanted to say.
“You know,” I told him after a few moments, “whatever it is, it can’t possibly be worse than what’s already happened... or worse than I deserve. You might as well just say it.”
He came to a stop, still not facing me.
“I slept with Heath,” he blurted. “A couple of weeks ago. Just once... although I wanted it to be more.”
Oh.
A flash of unwanted memory assaulted me. A van with a nest in the back. Tony in the driver’s seat, fiddling with the mirrors. Heath’s presence through the mate-bond, thinking the same possessive thoughts about both of us.
Scent, mark, protect.
I swallowed hard. Well—that answered one question, anyway.
But I’d let Tony’s declaration hang in the air too long. He scurried onward, trying to explain.
“I told him it was just a one-night stand, see?” he said, finally turning to look at me. His hands were out, palm up, like he was trying to physically hand me the explanation. “It seemed safer, and honestly? I didn’t think he’d even agree if he thought I was pining after him like some love-struck teenager.”
I didn’t point out that he was, in fact, nineteen, unless I’d missed a birthday... and pretty obviously love-struck. None of that mattered.
What mattered was that I’d managed to screw up Tony Scalise’s life in a whole new way, long after I should have been a speck in his rearview mirror.
“He likes you.” The words escaped before I’d fully thought them through.
“What?” Tony asked, momentarily derailed.
I took a slow breath. “We’re in each other’s minds. And, I mean, he’s doing his best to block the bond now—but when youand Gage showed up to rescue us from that terrible place, he wasn’t. He responded to you while he was in rut.”
“That doesn’t count,” Tony said, too quickly. “He was drugged.”
“Um... I’m pretty sure itdoescount,” I shot back. “Trust me, if some random beta dude had walked in off the street while he was in rut and protecting me, it wouldnothave gone well.”
Tony blinked at me, his expression slack. His face looked like the screen on one of those old computers in the public library while it was rebooting.
Abruptly, the weight of everything that had happened in the last week felt unbearable. I slumped forward, resting my chin on my hands on the desk.
“Tony, I think it’s safe to say that Heath likes you a hell of a lot more than he likesme,” I said. “The scent match thing... it’s just chemicals.”
With a pang, I remembered the feeling of being tucked in Gage’s bed, surrounded by his Christmas bakery smell as he purred me to sleep. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to think about it.
The room was quiet for a long moment. Then the shuffle of movement reached me. I forced myself to open my eyes again and meet Tony’s gaze as he pulled a chair over and set it down in front of the desk, sinking into it.
