“I’m sensing a story.”
I chuckled. “You’ll get one.”
Rin came over to me, and I saw her almost reach for me and stop. The tiny frown crease between her eyes made me want to soothe it. “I didn’t think through the part where we can’t touch.”
“Only a few hours,” I said quietly. “I’m sure there will beplentyof touching once we get home.”
She took a step away from me as Cecil found us. “I thought I heard voices. Hey, honey.” He hugged Rin, and she hugged him back.
Whatever it was about this house or Cecil’s pack that spooked our Omega, her father wasn’t part of it. Or at least notfullypart of it. I left them to talk quietly, joining the others in the dining room.
Valentina, or Val, as she liked to be called, already sat at the head of the table, scrolling on her phone. Paige and Matthew, a Beta and Alpha respectively, were next to her. They were all together, but Cecil wasn’t involved with them. They were just pack without any romantic connotations.
Which was fine. That was the way we’d been before Trinity. Mom had told me after meeting Cecil that he enjoyed having a pack and a home base to return to—and somewhere to leave Trinity—but he was fine not being romantically involved because it allowed him more freedom to do what he loved. Then she grinned and said he loved her more than that.
Pack instincts did what they wanted, as evidenced by the Alpha currently being pushed into the room by my mother.
Val looked up and saw Aiden. “I thought we were just having your son’s pack, Liz.”
“You are,” I said.
Mom looked at me. I glanced around the room. We were all here. Might as well. “This is Aiden. Theo and he met yesterday, and the pack bond snapped in. A surprise, but we’re not mad about it. So, Val, you’re correct. You’re hosting our pack. And Trinity.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s… well, that’s something.”
Paige smiled and Matt nodded in agreement. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” I pulled out a chair for Trinity and settled her before I sat across the table. The Alpha in me wanted to be close to her, but I also wanted to watch her during this dinner for any clues.
As far as I was concerned, Trinity was mine, and would be for the rest of my life. If something was hurting her or made her afraid, I would find out.
“That is not what I thought you were going to say.” Mom sat next to Cecil, who was at the other end of the table.
“Believe me, it was a shock,” Theo said.
Cecil cleared his throat. “How did you meet?”
“It’s my fault,” Trinity said with a laugh. “Well,faultmight be the wrong word. But Aiden is a friend of the DuPonts, my best friend’s pack, and they thought he might be able to help me with a story I’m working on. The guys offered to make sure he wasn’t a serial killer.”
Theo laughed. “Jury’s still out on that one.”
Aiden lifted his empty glass in a mock cheer. “I’m not, but if I were, you’d never know.”
“Comforting,” Bastian said.
We all laughed at that. Almost all of us. There were wine bottles on the table. I stood and grabbed one. “Who needs wine?”
“Thank you, Logan,” Cecil said. “What do you do, Aiden?”
Pouring for the people who wanted it, I made my way around the table, leaning in closer than necessary to Trinity while Aiden explained that he was a technology specialist. Which wasn’t technically a lie.
When I was back in my seat, I turned to Val, Paige, and Matt. “Speaking of careers, I don’t know that Mom or Cecil has ever mentioned what the three of you do?”
“I’m an accountant,” Paige said.
Brooks leaned forward. “So we know to come to you for all the tax shit?”
“Unfortunately, no. I specialize in accounting for large corporations. So unless that’s you…”
