I tilt my head to the side, frustration and something else churning in my chest. Something that feels like guilt. Maybe I've been too hard on her. She was trying to work up the guts to see Ben again. He hurt her pretty badly, and that's my jackass brother for you.
"Your brother must have done a number on Sharon," she says as I move back to the window. I stare out at the snow falling.
I nod in agreement. My scent settles back to normal. Cedar, sweat, gunpowder. But there's something underneath it now. Something that wasn't there before.
"Ben isn't great at relationships. Then again, none of us are, but we're not as low as Ben." I pause. "Maybe I'm being too hard on Sharon."
Savannah nods. "Yeah, I shouldn't have given her this job. Not without explaining about Ben first."
Her phone chimes, and she reads the message out loud.
"I'm sorry I've let you down. I won't do it again."
That's Sharon. Even after everything, the panic, the judgment, the weight of this whole situation, she's apologizing. She's still fighting. She wants to do this job, even if Ben won't appreciate it. Even if she's terrified.
She's a fighter.
"Don't worry," I say, my voice quieter than before. Something in my chest feels like determination. "I'll support Sharon as best I can. Where's she staying?"
"Pine Inn."
I jump up with a spring in my step. I haven't seen her for five years, but I remember her. Hell, I never stopped remembering her.
Ben's girlfriend with the curves that made my hands itch every time she walked into a room. Hips that swayed when she moved. Thighs that filled out her jeans in ways that pissed me off because she wasn't mine to look at. She was always so put together back then. Prim and proper. Buttoned up. Trying to be the perfect omega Ben wanted her to be. But her hair never got the memo. Those wild curls had a life of their own, always escaping whatever style she'd wrestled them into, falling into her face, making her look just a little undone.
Drove me crazy. Made me want to mess her up completely. Made me want to watch that careful composure crack while those curls tangled around my fingers.
She deserved better than my brother's cold indifference. She deserved someone who actually saw her instead of trying to make her smaller.
My scent spikes again. Cedar and something protective underneath.
"Give her some slack," Savannah says with a knowing smile. Like she knows exactly what I'm about to do.
"I intend to."
I stand up, already reaching for my jacket, but Cassian's voice stops me.
Cassian walks in from the hallway, probably finished helping with whatever baby-proofing project had him occupied.
“Hold on."
He's looking at me with that expression that means he knows something I don't.
"You sure you know what you're doing?"
"I'm going to apologize to Sharon," I say. "What's complicated about that?"
"You sure it's just an apology?" Cassian leans back in his chair, arms crossed. "Because the way your scent spiked when Savannah mentioned her name suggests this might be more than professional concern."
I want to deny it. I should deny it. But Cassian's right, he usually is, and lying to my brother feels pointless when he can literally smell the truth on me.
"She was Ben's girlfriend," I say carefully. "I remember her. A people pleaser who kept apologizing for taking up space, like she had to justify existing around my brother. Ben was a little shit back then. Still is. Sharon never deserved that, and she doesn't deserve me being hard on her now. That's why I'm apologizing."
"And you think you can give her better?" Cassian's tone isn't judgmental. Just curious.
"I think she deserves someone who sees her," I say. "Really sees her. Not just as an omega to be tolerated until something better comes along."
Savannah is watching me with a small smile, like she's seeing something play out that she expected all along.
