“Have you spoken with your primary care physician about the failure of the suppressants? Could it be you using the medicine too much and your body getting used to it?”
“Dallas,” Maverick barked, making everyone in the room stiffen.
The two alphas glared at each other.
“That’s enough,” Maverick told him. “You’re hurting her feelings.”
Dallas looked at me, his expression stony but his green eyes holding something deeper that I couldn’t quite understand. Then he turned on his heel and stomped out of the room.
“Jesus,” Zeke muttered, staring after the other alpha. “You’d think she just told him that he was being fired.”
“It’s not like that,” Brooks said, hurrying to defend his brother as he stepped forward and dropped down on one knee in front of me. “I would really like to stay and talk about this more with you,Lennon. I’ve been waiting for months for this, truly. But I need to go after my idiot brother right now.”
“Okay,” I said to him, feeling a bit giddy from his words.
But what he did next sent butterflies swirling around in my stomach.
Gently gripping my chin in his fingers, he pulled my face to his and gave me a slow, chaste kiss on the lips.
It was my first kiss in front of the other guys, and really the first solid kiss in what I was hoping would be our pack moving forward.
“I’ll be back for more later,” he promised as he stood, his green eyes not leaving me until the door clicked shut behind him.
Zeke and Maverick, who had been watching the entire thing, looked almost impressed by their team member because Zeke just let out a low whistle.
“I didn’t know he had it in him to do that in front of us so soon. Hell, maybe this whole pack thing isn’t such a bad idea,” he said as he dropped a quick kiss to the top of my head and shot Maverick a look.
“I’m going to try to figure out how the hell we’re going to keep this a secret for the next two months. You get to figure out how to cover up that bond mark so those gossipy stylists of hers don’t immediately spill the beans.”
“Lisa and Landon would never,” I protested as Zeke headed for the door.
“People would do anything for money, Len,” Maverick told me, his expression grave. “Now come on, let’s get you back to your room before everyone arrives for the day.”
Chapter Twenty Three
Post Home-state Rally Dinner — Boston, Massachusetts
1 month until the election…
“Lennon! Lennon, over here!” a reporter shouted as we hurried from the SUV to the front door of the hotel venue where the post-home-state rally dinner was being held.
Lennon had spoken right before her mother, though there was a definite chill between them as the speculation that had started the day of the Michigan rally blazed out of control.
At this point, I had no clue how we were still on the job at all.
Collier made it clear that it was above his paygrade, but that he would have yanked us ages ago, and President Holloway’s magnanimity toward us for saving Lennon that day in the Kennedy garden had long run out.
Today, when we’d seen her backstage, she’d ignored us completely and had offered her daughter a monotone greeting that I knew hurt Lennon’s feelings. Especially considering Lennon had spent the last six months of her life supporting her mother’s campaign.
So who the heck was it that was keeping us with her?
Pulling the door to the hotel open, Brooks stood on the other side while Dallas and Maverick flanked Lennon inside while I brought up the rear.
“Are those your bodyguards or your alphas!” someone else managed to fire off before we got in and Lennon turned to glare at him.
“Don’t,” Maverick said, probably feeling her anger through the shared bond that we’d been meticulously covering up with makeup.
Lennon had insisted on dressing herself to her stylists—something that I could tell that the pair wasn’t used to—but we couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t spill the beans as soon as they saw the silvery scar capping her slender shoulder.
