“You could have sold one of your holdings, rather than your little brother.”
“I won’t be the first in the line to break up our holdings,” Lassit said after a truly startled pause.
“Which is why your father begged me to take Arden. He knew that sooner or later, you’d see him as an asset, you’d use him as an asset, and he wouldn’t be able to stand against you.”
“We’re going in circles,” Lassit said with another of those dismissive waves. “It is done. You married him, and the exorbitant price you paid for him has restored the estate and left plenty over. Give him back to me. There will never be any need for Arden to leave his home again.”
“I’d have paid ten times as much. I’d have emptied my vaults for him.”
Lassit blinked.
“I do want him, Lassit,” Jack said. “I love him. Whatever you think compelled me to this, it was one thing and one thing only. I love Arden. I always have. I want him happy, and there is nothing I will not do to make that happen. I will give him whatever he needs. Whatever he wants.”
“He’ll want to come home to me. Eventually. When he does?”
“If he asked me to let him return to Dalbryn,” Jack said, his gaze flicking briefly to Beckett, “I’d let him.”
“Then why waste time? You’ll hurt him and disappoint him soon enough. Spare him the unnecessary pain and give him?—”
“He might let Arden go,” Beckett said, nice and loud so there was no more ignoring him. He walked over to stand beside Jack and really bang it home. “I won’t.”
Finally, Lassit acknowledged him. “What?” he said flatly.
Beckett grinned his very best, most insolent grin, letting all his ego out to play. “Yeah, Jack might let his husband go, if he asked it. Me, though? Whyn’t you go ahead and ask me if I’d let my omega go without a fight?”
Lassit went rigid. “Jack,” he said. “No.”
“Yes,” Beckett spoke over anything Jack might have had to say. “Your little brother ismyomega, too. I know you’ve been worried about Jack not satisfying him right, what with liking alphas—” here he hitched a thumb at himself, “—though he’s up for trying it, don’t you worry. As for me, I know my way around an omega just fine. Arden’s got no complaints there.”
And Beckett couldn’t feel sorry for the man, but at the shattered breath he took in at that, Beckett felt something. He shoved it ruthlessly down.
“Jack. Give him back to me,” Lassit said. Actually sounded like he was asking now, not telling. When Jack didn’t respond, Lassit turned and locked eyes with Beckett, taking his measure.
Didn’t like what he saw, not one bit.
Beckett stared back at him.
Same.
This alpha was nothing like Jack. He was exactly what Jack should have been, what Beckett once thought he was. A filthy rich bastard who used everything at his disposal to get his way as if it was his gods-given right, who trampled over everyone between him and what he wanted without even noticing them.
He had a big, well-muscled body, a beautiful face, thick hair, and fancy clothes. That probably made it worse. Made it easier for him to get his way all the time. Beckett would even have given him a toss, back before he met Jack, although this was the kind of alpha Beckett would have mastered, held down and made take it, not one he’d meet equally.
Jack was the only one he’d met on a level footing.
Lassit turned to Jack. “You’re handing him over to your fucking servants? Howcouldyou?”
“How couldyou?” Jack said, calmly. “You’d have handed him over to a stranger.”
“It’s different. I had no choice. You do.”
“You’re right, I do. Beckett is my?—”
“His lover,” Beckett interjected.
Jack sent him a fondly exasperated look. “Beckett is my lover and my love. I’m not handing Arden over to anyone, even him. Arden decides. That’s what you wouldn’t let him have, and I would. I will. Beckett will. Arden chooses. You’d do nothing but take his choices from him.”
Beckett saw that one hit, clear as day.
