Bad enough Beckett was running around with a duke in the first place, he didn’t need to go getting ideas above his station like making friends with the duke’s fancy secretary. He had limits.
He had hispride.
Beckett ignored Nolan and said to Jack, “He can’t go. He needs to be here.”
Jack sat back in his chair, tossing the pen on the polished desktop. He didn’t say anything.
To be fair, he didn’t get a chance.
Nolan bristled up like the stuffy little hedgepig he was. “What do you think you are doing?” he barked. “You maynotbarge in here and start throwing?—”
“I may,” Beckett said. “Blanket permission is what I got, from His Grace an’ all, so you can shove that noise right back in your hole.”
Nolan recoiled as if someone had thrown a bucket of iced water in his face.
Beckett didn’t blame him. Not really. This was the old Beckett. Nolan didn’t know him like this. He knew Beckett as a professional and distant footman, who was always polite, and never showed by so much as a lingering glance that he and Jack were fucking. Nolan knew, as everyone did, but Beckett had never shown it.
“Nolan,” Jack said quietly. “We’ll pick this up later. Beckett and I do have things to discuss.”
“As you wish.” Nolan snatched up the satchel he was never without from beside the desk, stuffed his notebook and papers into it, and stalked out of the room. He didn’t so much as look at Beckett as he passed, even though it was clear that he’d like to do more than look at him.
Beat him about the head with his little bag, probably.
Or kneecap him.
Beckett crossed the room with impatient steps to lean over the desk, bracing his hands flat on the cool wooden surface. “You can’t let him go.”
Jack contemplated him in silence.
Beckett scowled, hackles rising.
“His heat is over,” Jack said. “As is your rut.”
“Yes.”
“Does it matter, then?”
Beckett scowled harder. “Of course it matters.”
“Why?”
Beckett stared at him for a long moment before he burst out indignantly, “He’s my omega!”
Jack sat back in his chair and laced his hands over his stomach. “He’s not, though.”
Now Beckett felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of iced water at him.
“You’re the one who said it,” Jack reminded him.
“Well—”
“And he ismyhusband.”
Beckett straightened and lifted his chin.
“My husband,” Jack continued, “who has asked me for one single thing the whole time I’ve known him. Do you want to know what he asked of me?”
Beckett could tell by Jack’s sad face, and by the sympathy in his eyes, that Beckett didnotwant to know.
