“Layne, I am giving you a hug,” he warns.
“Whatever.”
Even after his warning and bracing my body, I still whimper when his hand circles over my hip. My own body continues to betray me as the tears I’ve been holding fall onto the pillow.
“Turn around, let me hold you,” he says.
I shake my head. “I don’t know you.”
“True. But you do know we’re scent matches. When all else doesn’t make sense, lean in to that. We smell perfect for a reason.”
I drop my head onto Bella’s rump and curl into a tighter ball. Matteo doesn’t lie down; he sits on the edge of the bed, leaving his hand on my waist.
“It seems like a ridiculous question, but what caused this reaction? Or what part of today left you like this?”
I bite back a scoff.Not gonna happen, buddy. It’s my turn to ask questions, though I take a while to figure out what I want to know first. “When did you guys decide to turn our fake engagement into a marriage?”
Matteo squeezes my waist. “Before you got back here from your last shift at Styke, we knew you were using an alias. But then that whole thing with Claudia was a solid reminder of how fucking desperate some people are in our world. Between knowing you’re our scent match and seeing how easily you fit in, became one of us, our hindbrains took over. You’re ours to protect; it’s instinctual and almost overwhelming.
“When we found out who you actually are, we all nearly went into cardiac arrest. If Vitale found out, he’d be collecting the reward on offer before slitting your throat as a message to your family. Val pulled a favor to make you our wife, making you untouchable. In our family, but also in case your family finds you. The thought of anything happening to you is frightening, to say the least. And, yeah, things are happening fast between us. We barely know each other. But that doesn’t change how we feel.”
“So many pretty words, Matteo, but none of them make sense. If you found out that quickly, how can you guarantee someone else won’t?”
He moves the hair off my face. “They won’t be able to pretty soon. Some of the favors we pulled made sure of that, but there are consequences to it, and we need your okay to give the go ahead.”
“Just tell me,” I grumble.
“You did an amazing job hiding. Switching identities as often as you did was very smart, but it must have been expensive.”
I don’t confirm or deny his assumption, although he is right—it was expensive. I spent almost all the money I had when I first started running on getting fake IDs. They were rudimentary, but I never got into the situation where someone asked if they were forged, either. Living under the radar was hard work, and there were times when I went without food or shelter. My only priority was not being found by my family, or any of their friends.
Matteo starts to explain the implications of what they’re proposing. “Yale would be erased, and that’s only one piece of it. Basically, Ariana Rothchild would cease to exist.”
I sit up slowly, blowing out a breath full of angst. Pushing Bella out of the way, I take her spot, but she lies back down, making Matteo keep his distance.
“Nothing will remain on the internet? No whispers of who I was?”
“It will take a little while, but in time, you will disappear online. It will take longer to replace any documents that are downloadable that mention you, but where you were a ghost before, now it’ll be like you never existed.”
“Why would you do that? It must have cost you a fortune.”
Matteo rests his hand on Bella, and I know it’s because he’s struggling not to soothe me with his physical touch. I lean back against the wall, putting even more distance between us. He bites his lip, a wave of regret hitting his scent, and he doesn’t try to hide the disappointment in his eyes when he looks at me.
“I’m not punishing you. I just don’t really trust me right now, Matteo.”
“You must feel played,” he says quietly, compassion infusing his voice. “But we’ll do whatever we can to prove that wasn’t our intention. We don’t want you to feel like this.”
“How long do I have to decide if I want that part of my life erased?”
“In truth, probably a long time. When I said he pulled favors, I meant it, but that was driven not by necessity, but by his Alpha getting overly possessive and wanting to save you from ever feeling blindsided again.”
My eyes fall back to Bella, and the sight of her resting fills me with my own need to sleep. I have to give my brain a rest, to switch off the noise.
“Let me think.” I shut my eyes before Matteo can say another word.
He shuffles around, then the weight of a blanket falls over me. He bunches it between me and Bella, leaning down to brush my hair off my face again. “Call out if you need anything.”
I hear him close the door.
