Page 24 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

"I said I'm fine." My voice sharpens. I adjust Lily on my hip. "I'm going to put her down for a nap. Excuse me."

I walk past them. All three, Deklan has appeared now, leaning in the living room doorway, watching me with those dark, unreadable eyes, and I feel their gazes on me like physical weight. On my back. On my neck. On the curve of my hip where Knox's hand rested this morning.

I don't look back.

I take Lily to her room, change her diaper, and lay her in her crib. She grabs my hand before I can pull away, her small fingers wrapping around my index finger with surprising strength.

"Willow stay?" she murmurs, already half-asleep.

Something breaks in my chest.

"Yeah, baby," I whisper. "Willow stays."

I sit in the rocking chair beside her crib and watch her fall asleep. Her breathing evens out. Her grip on my finger loosens. And in the quiet, with nothing but the sound of her small, steady breaths, Serena's words echo through my mind.

You're not a person to them. You're a function.

A warm body to fill the gap.

They get bored.

You are just convenient.

I press my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound that escapes. It's not quite a sob, more like the whimper of something small and wounded, cornered and too tired to fight.

I came here with nothing. A duffel bag and a desperate hope. I thought, stupidly, naively, that being chosen meant being wanted. That the scent match meant more than biology. That the way JD looked at me, the way Knox touched me, the way Deklan almost let me in, it meant something real.

But what if it doesn't?

What if I'm just Serena 2.0? A new model, a better match, a more efficient way to fill the hole that Mara's death left in this family?

What if I'm not Willow to them? What if I'm just omega?

The tears come quietly and I let them. In the crib, Lily sleeps. In the hallway, three men breathe and wait and watch.

And I sit in the dark, heart cracking open, wondering if I just made the biggest mistake of my life by walking into that elevator.

Chapter five

Deklan

I know something is wrong the moment she walks through the door.

It's not the way she looks, though there's that too. The shadows under her eyes have deepened, and the set of her jaw is different. Harder. The softness from this morning, the tentative warmth she showed in the kitchen when Knox was teasing her, when Lily was squealing, it's gone. Replaced by something brittle, like glass that's been held over a flame and dropped into ice water.

But it's the scent that tells me everything.

Her honey-vanilla has curdled. That's the only word for it. The sweet, warm, arousal-tinged fragrance that's been pouring off her since she arrived has shifted, soured, and gone sharp with an edge of fear and something worse. Something I recognize because I've smelled it on myself.

Heartbreak.

Willow smells like she's grieving. And I don't know why.

I lean in the living room doorway and watch her walk past me, spine straight, chin up, Lily balanced on her hip like a shield. She doesn't look at me. Doesn't acknowledge me. Just marches down the hallway toward Lily's room with the focused determination of a woman who is holding herself together through sheer force of will.

"Willow, " Knox starts.

"I said I'm fine."