I shook my head, trying to shake loose thoughts I had no business thinking. Brian would make a great father, and so what if he wasn’t stellar Alpha material? Times had changed.Icould be the stellar Alpha.
“Okay.” I exhaled, mentally resigning myself to what I was about to say. “Send me whatever wedding stuff my mom gave you.” I held my index finger up to stop his smile before it got out of hand. “But consider yourself warned—I don’t know the difference between periwinkle and sky blue either.”
“Well, I’m sure either of them will look beautiful on you.” He frowned. “Oh, wait, the bride usually wears white, doesn’t she?”
Usually. The word echoed in my brain until I couldn’t hear anything else.
Brian looked horrified. “That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean you can’t wear white.Of courseyou’ll wear white.”
“Brian.” But I didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m so sorry.” He hesitated. “You never talk about it, though. Don’t you think we should—?”
“No.” I said it too quickly, and he looked hurt. “I’m sorry, but no.” The last thing I wanted was to discuss my very darkest memories in the middle of the woods with the man I’d be marrying in six months.
“If you change your mind…” He tried to pull me into an embrace but let go immediately when I didn’t relax or hug him back. “Okay, you’re not ready. That’s okay. Sometimes, it takes a long time to get over—”
“That’s not it,” I snapped, irrationally irritated by his assumption that he knew what I was thinking and feeling.
He knewnothing. Because I’d never told him. Just the thought of how that conversation might go made me sick to my stomach.
“Is it me?” Brian frowned, studying my eyes. “Am I the problem?”
“No.”
“Then it’s Jace.” His gaze dropped to the ground, but not before I caught a fleeting glimpse of jealousy. “I should have known.”
“What?” My pulse raced with a sudden burst of alarm. “No—”
He looked up sharply. “I see the way you look at him, Abby. He’s so pissed at you right now that he can’t even stand to be in the same house with you, but you still have that look on your face, like you want to take a bath in his pheromones.”
My face flushed, and I hoped he couldn’t see that in the dark. What I wanted didn’t matter, because it wasn’t reciprocated. Because it would beextraordinarilyinappropriate. Because I’d already given my word and accepted a ring. “It’s not like that, Brian. He’s my Alpha.”
“That’s why you want him, isn’t it? It’s some kind of biological imperative. He’s an Alpha, so deep down, you think he must be the best possible father for your kids, but—”
“Okay, that’s enough!” I snapped, finished with trying to coddle his ego. “My biological imperatives are not the issue. I don’t evenhavebiological imperatives, because this isn’t theStone Ageand I’m not some knuckle-dragging cavewoman, helpless to fight her reproductive urges.”
Brian’s eyes widened, and I could practically smell panic in the beads of sweat that popped up on his forehead. He’d never heard me yell. He only knew the Abby who’d been afraid of her own shadow. Afraid ofeveryone’sshadow.
The Abby who would agree to almost anything just so she wouldn’t have to talk anymore.
But that Abby was gone, andthisAbby was going to have to start talking her way out of trouble rather than into it.
“Jace is my Alpha and nothing more.” I took another deep breath to cover the hitch in my pulse. “I’m wearingyourring.” I held up my left hand, and the diamond glittered in the moonlight. “Does that make you feel better?”
Brian nodded. “I guess I just needed the reminder. Sometimes, it seems like everyone else knows you better than I do.” He took my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles. “I love seeing that on your finger.”
Yet somehow, I couldn’t get used to the bulk of the ring, as if that one third of a carat weighed as heavily on my mind as it did on my hand.
Brian cleared his throat, then met my gaze with more boldness than I’d ever seen from him. “I’ll besogood to you, Abby. I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.”
My chest ached as if he’d punched me square in the sternum, but my heart was the real target. Brian was sweet, and honest, and my parents loved him. Maybe someday I could too.
Maybe…
“I know you will,” I said at last. His eyes lit up, and it worried me that a few words from me could change his entire demeanor. I didn’t want to be responsible for his mental state. Hell, I didn’t want to be responsible for myownmood.
“Okay. I need some space now, if you don’t mind. I need to think.”
