Her gaze flicks briefly to me, then back to the camera.
“In the weeks since the finale aired, questions have only grown louder. About the choices that were made. About the people involved. About what happened behind the scenes.”
She lets that sit for just a beat before continuing.
“Tonight, for the first time since the events that changed everything, Florence Karlin and the Ashbourne Pack have agreed to speak openly. Together.”
Her hand gestures lightly toward us, elegant, deliberate.
“This is not a reunion. This is not a performance.” A pause. “This is the truth as they’re willing to share it.”
Her gaze sharpens just slightly, a glint of something showing beneath the polish.
“And I think we can all agree… It's been a long time coming.”
She turns fully toward me then, the warmth returning, threaded now with curiosity.
“Florence.” Then she looks at Forsythe sitting next to me. “Your highness, my lords. Thank you all for being here.”
If the prince is upset at Cleo going against protocol and greeting me first, he doesn’t show it, smiling warmly back at her. “Thank you for having us.”
She tips her head in acknowledgment. “Let's get started with an obvious question.” Her gaze lands pointedly on my neck, on my mating marks left on display by my high ponytail, and a pleased smirk curves her mouth. “It appears as though the Ashbourne pack finally got their heads out of their arses and claimed you. Is that right?”
I allow a small chuckle to fall from my lips as I nod, a pleased flush curling over my cheeks. “Yes. It took a bit, but we bonded almost… a week ago?”
“Six days,” Thayer corrects, sliding his hand onto my thigh and squeezing.
“Best six days of my life,” Court beams.
“Of all our lives,” Forsythe corrects.
“I’m delighted to hear that,” Cleo says, sounding genuine. “I was rooting for you from the start.” I believe her. She didn’t keep it a secret that she was annoyed at the way the production staff continually put Isadora first in all things. Likely at the request of the queen.
“You made quite the waves, your highness, when you posted a photo of all of you together in bed, clearly newly bonded… amongother things.” My cheeks turn pink at the mention of those ‘other things.’ “What made you decide to announce your bond in that way?”
The smile he gives her is warm and reaches his eyes, and it only grows when he looks at me, getting soft and sweet, full of adoration. “I didn’t want to wait a single second longer to claim Florence as my mate. I wanted the world to know as quickly as possible how much I adore this woman-”
“How much we all do,” Court adds, leaning forward to drop a kiss on my shoulder.
I can’t help but preen just a bit as Forsythe continues. “And how proud I am to be able to call her mine.Ours.Especially with how much we cocked it up when we first met.”
He turns to look at me, brown eyes so freaking warm. “I can’t believe we didn’t realize who she was from the first. That we didn’t tell every other omega to go home immediately.”
“Wouldn’t have been much of a show if we did,” Court quips.
“Would have saved us a lot of trouble, though,” Thayer says mildly.
Cleo hums, arching her brows. “Some might argue that given the reaction you had to her, the intense need to protect her against the other omegas, the way you called her ‘my heart’ in Latin, that you did realize who she was to you and your pack, you just wouldn’t admit it. Not me of course,” she says with a slysmile that tells me she definitely would argue that point. “Justsomepeople.”
“And they’d be right,” Thayer responds. “Even without scenting Florence, we knew she was special. Knew she belonged to us. But we had made commitments prior to being on the show that our duties required us to see through.”
“Yes, let's talk about that.”
Off to the side I see Lulu frantically shaking her head, while Marshall swipes his hand back and forth across his neck. Cleo ignores them both. “Is it true that you came onto the show under false pretenses? That you weren’t there to find love, but to instead play at falling in love with Isadora Aureline for the world to see?”
“That was the plan, yes,” Forsythe admits.
Court snorts. “Didn’t work though, did it? Everyone could see how we felt about Pix right from the beginning.”
