I stand for a moment, gathering my courage. “I’m sorry I can’t be the Alpha you deserve.”
I open the door and step into a life that will be filled with regret because now I know exactly what I’m leaving behind.
Everything.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Espie
I've been pottering in the greenhouse for hours. Hands in the soil. Eyes on the seedlings.
The glass walls are fogged from the inside and the air hangs thick and warm around me, heavy with gardenia.
Right now, that suits me just fine.
Through the glass, across the lawn and the patio, the kitchen window glows. Aubrey is in there with Ezra, moving around the kitchen. Ezra is at the stove and Aubrey is at the counter, shoulders loose. Ezra says something and Aubrey ducks his head, and it takes me a second to realize he's laughing.
He'slaughing.
I press my thumb into the soil, lips turned up as I feel his shy joy. Ezra turns from the stove and catches Aubrey's chin in his palm, tilting his face up. Aubrey is a few inches shorter and he has to look up to meet Ezra's eyes. They look right together. The height difference, Ezra angling toward him. A flash of wanting hits me. Not mine. Aubrey's.
Ezra takes his time as he leans down, his hand cupped under Aubrey's jaw, and Aubrey goes up onto his toes like he wants to close the last half-inch as they kiss. Arousal hits me in a wave. My grip tightens on the trowel I'm holding and I realize I've stopped breathing.
I can't stop staring.
The kiss ends. Aubrey drops back to his heels. He turns his head, looks straight through the fogged greenhouse glass at me, and winks.
He knew I was watching the whole time and he kissed Ezra anyway, probably kissed Ezra because I was watching, and now he's standing there with his shirt crumpled where he grabbed it and a smile on his face and zero remorse. My own desire throbs. Gardenia is everywhere in here and I can't blame the plants for it.
Aubrey knew exactly what he was doing.
Aubrey told me he’d been with Ezra. He’d looked like someone who'd remembered he was allowed to breathe. Like the wanting wasn't a trap he'd stepped into but a thing he'd chosen on purpose. He wasn't performing okay. He was actually okay.
He's still scarred. So am I. We're going to be carrying it for the rest of our lives. The distance between barely surviving and wanting to live again isn’t small.
Ezra leans down and murmurs something in Aubrey’s ear, and Aubrey's smile tips wider and he nods. I don't have to read lips. Ezra was asking whether I was watching. Aubrey's amusement hits me, and despite everything I want to be annoyed but I'm mostly just caught.
I was watching. I'm not even sorry.
I stand in the greenhouse holding a seedling I forgot to plant, pulled in too many directions at once. The wanting is real. Mine and Aubrey’s tangled together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
And underneath it is the ache Sera left behind.
Aubrey begged her to stay and she walked out anyway. Now every quiet moment drops me straight back into the space she left behind.
Lex comes into the kitchen. His gaze lands on Ezra and Aubrey, then slides to me. Holds. A frisson goes through me at his intense, single-minded look. He's holding a white tray of seedlings, but I barely notice it as he slides the door open and steps out onto the patio.
He takes the steps down to the lawn and crosses the grass toward the greenhouse. He's tall. Broad-shouldered the way most alphas are. His gaze is trained on me the entire way until he comes to the door and lifts the tray.
My mouth goes dry. He's in a gray linen shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and his hair is doing that thing where it falls across his forehead, and I'm very aware that he is a good-looking man. Objectively. Scientifically. The awareness prickles all over me.
“I've brought gifts. Can I come in?” he asks.
He doesn't move. He's standing at the threshold with the tray and waiting. He always does that. Always waits, always asks, gives me the chance to say no.
He steps inside at my nod. Earl Grey and sandalwood drift through the greenhouse, mixing with the damp green scent of the plants. The tight fist behind my sternum eases.
He sets the tray on the bench. His hands are big, long-fingered, and the tray looks small in them. He straightens and smiles at me, open and unhurried.
