The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy with everything unsaid. I could hear my own heartbeat. Could hear her breathing, slow and steady. Could smell her scent shifting again—the sharp edge of anger fading into something warmer, more curious.
"Why?" The word was soft, barely above a whisper, and it hit me harder than any of her sharp words had. "Why watch me? Why leave things on my dock and fix my fences and never say a word?"
The question cracked something open inside me. All those weeks of silence, of watching from a distance, of wanting so badly it felt like a physical wound.
"Because I—" I stopped, swallowed hard, felt my hands trembling against the counter. "You. I can't stop..." I shook my head, frustrated with my own useless tongue. "The brandy. What you said about it. My grandmother's heart in a bottle." The words came out raw and exposed, like I was peeling back my own skin. "No one ever saw that before. Saw me."
Her expression changed. Went soft in a way that made my chest ache with something dangerously close to hope.
"I see you, Harper." She moved closer, close enough that I could count the freckles scattered across her nose, close enough that her scent wrapped around me like a promise. "I saw you that first day. The real you."
She reached out and took my hand. Just took it, like it was nothing, like it was everything. Her fingers wrapped aroundmine, warm and certain, anchoring me to the moment. I trembled. A full-body shudder that I couldn't control, couldn't hide. Years of being alone. Years of touch meaning nothing but violence or cold transaction. And here she was, holding my hand like I was something precious, something worth gentling.
A rumble built in my chest—low and involuntary, the sound of an Alpha being soothed by his Omega. The sound of something broken starting to mend.
She wasn't my Omega. Not yet. Maybe not ever. In that moment, with her hand in mine and her scent wrapping around me like a benediction, I let myself hope.
"The other two." Her voice was steady, certain, cutting through the fog in my head. "They're going to hear from me too. I'm getting answers from all of you."
I nodded, not trusting my voice, not trusting anything except the feeling of her fingers intertwined with mine.
"And Harper?" She squeezed my hand once before letting go, and the absence of her touch was a physical ache, a cold spot where warmth had been. "Next time you find something on my property? You tell me. Not fix it. Not handle it. Tell me."
"Yes." The word was a vow, a promise, everything I couldn't say wrapped up in a single syllable. She picked up the stakes from the counter, tucking them under her arm like captured enemy flags. At the door, she paused, her hand on the frame, and looked back at me with those impossible eyes.
"Thursday night. My cabin. All three of you." A smile curved her lips—sharp and challenging and so beautiful it hurt to look at. "Time to stop circling and start talking."
Then she was gone, and I stood there with my hand still tingling from her touch and the sound of my grandmother's bell ringing off-key in the silence she'd left behind.
Thursday. Four days away.
I had four days to figure out how to share the woman I'd been circling for weeks with two other Alphas who wanted her just as badly. The thought should have made me angry. Should have triggered every possessive instinct I had, should have sent me snarling after Thibodaux and Boudreaux to establish dominance.
Instead, I felt something else. Something that surprised me.
Relief.
Because carrying this alone had been killing me. And if sharing her meant getting to keep her—even a piece of her—then I would learn. I would adapt. I would do whatever it took.
A growl rumbled through my chest. Agreement. Determination. Promise.
Four days.
I had work to do.
Chapter Seven
Remy
Three weeks since The Rusty Hook, and I still couldn't get her out of my head.
I sat on the deck of La Belle Menteuse, my guitar in my lap, fingers picking out a melody I couldn't finish. The houseboat rocked gently beneath me, water lapping against the hull, the evening sun painting everything gold. It should have been peaceful. Should have been the kind of moment where I lost myself in music and forgot everything else.
Instead, all I could think about was green-gold eyes and a voice that cut through every wall I'd ever built. I set the guitar aside with a frustrated growl, running my hands through my hair. Three weeks. Three weeks of playing that moment over and over in my head—her hand on mine, warm and steady, the way she'd looked at me like she could see straight through to the broken parts.
No one looked at me like that. People looked at the smile, the charm, the pretty face. They saw what I wanted them tosee. They never looked deeper because deeper was ugly, and I'd gotten very good at making sure no one ever had to see it.
She'd seen it anyway. Hadn't flinched. Hadn't pitied me.
