Pille’s POV
After Ella and I clean up the swatches and photo packets, we rush to the dining room for dinner. Everyone else is already seated. After a quick nod to each other, Ella inoves to the smaller side table where her parents are seated. I sit down at the far end of the main table.
Despite the hiccup of my things being scattered throughout the stairwell, my planning for the coronation ceremony has been proceeding smoothly. So far everything has come together well. Most of the venders and caters have been arranged, the deposits paid. The centerpieces have been ordered, musicians scheduled.
Right now, with the ceremony only a couple of days away, that’s left is a few final finishing touches.
“Ollie,” Diana says, her eyes drifting to the swatches. “I’m eager to see what you brought for me to look at today.”
“I have some swatches for the bows that will wrap around the aisle seats,” I say, and pass them down the line to Dian at the head of the table.
The brothers pass the swatches without really caring, but once they reach Sylvia at Diana’s right, she holds onto them.
“Mom,” she says, pouting. “Please let me help. Everyone else is helping but I’m not doing anything. You do need me, don’t you? I can be as helpful as Ollie.”
Diana looks stricken. “Of course we need you, Sylvia. Please don’t ever think otherwise.”
“Then why won’t you let me help?” Sylvia asks. “It’s such a big day for my brothers. I want to be a part of it.”
“You being there with us is all we need from you,” Conrad tells her.
“I want to help, too,” Sylvia says. Her bottom lip begins to tremble. “Unless you don’t think I’m capable…”
The brothers exchange a worried look with their mother.
“You are more than capable, Sylvia. Ollie would be grateful for your help, I’m sure,” Diana says.
Actually, I wouldn’t, but I can’t say that without incurring the wrath of everyone at the table. I can already tell that she just wants the credit and doesn’t want to do any of the actual work. Besides, most of the work is already done! All that’s left are a few of the more superficial details.
Diana considers for a moment. “Why don’t you help pick out some of the flower arrangements? Your brothers will need boutonnieres.” She looks across the table at me. “You don’t mind, do you, Ollie?”
I’ve already ordered flowers, including boutonnieres, but I suppose it’s not too late to cancel, assuming I do so right away.
There’s no easy way out of this. They’ll find some way for Sylvia to interfere in the planning. If not the flowers, then in some other way.
“Why would she?” Hugh says for me. His phone is on the table and he’s looking at it like he’s expecting it to ring any minute. “Dowdy Ollie needs help with her style choices. I can speak for the whole table when I say it will be a relief to have Sylvia assist.”
Looking at Hugh, it’s difficult to piece together the two sides of him I now know well. The lover, who had been so careful with me for my first time, and the cad who treats me like I don’t belong.
1/3
Chapter 32.
+25 BONUS
If he learned I am his mysterious mate, would he treat me fferently? Or would I only succeed in losing the side of him that is actually kind to me?
He must feel me staring. He glances at me, but I quickly look away.
“That’s fine,” I say, not really feeling like I have any choice
“Oh, good,” Sylvia says. “I want so much to be here for my brothers. Especially since… Well… with your mate missing…”
Wes lowers his head. Corrad picks up his salad fork. Declan just stares blankly straight ahead.
Hugh grabs his phone.
“After Christie, Vicki, and Kimber were sent away…” Sylvia says, with faux sadness, like it wasn’t her lies that got them exiled while she remains shrouded in fake innocence ‘I can only imagine how lonely you must be as single men again…”
Hugh types on his phone with his thumbs.
“All of us but Hugh,” Declan says pointedly.
“Hugh has a new lover,” Wes says, at Sylvia’s confused expression. “Some mystery woman he won’t tell us anything about.”
Hugh smiles as he lowers his phone.
Suddenly, the burner phone in my pocket makes a chiming sound.
The smile slips right off of Hugh’s face as he turns to look at me.
“Uh… excuse me,” I say. Quickly I pull my phone out of my pocket and set it to silent. “It’s just a message from my friend from school.”
“No phones at the table, Ollie,” Diana says, frowning. “You know my rule.”
A rule that only applies to me, apparently, and not to Hugh who lowers his head to send another message.
This time nothing happens. If he sent it to me, which is likely, my phone’s on silent so no one will hear.
He watches me, but when my phone doesn’t ring again, he looks away again. Setting his phone aside, he doesn’t lift it again.
I don’t dare check the messages while I’m sitting at the table. It isn’t until I’m down in my bedroom again, my swatches cast to the side, do I open the burner phone and see what Hugh sent me.
His first message reads, Are you free tonight?
The second message is a thinking emoji.
“Say yes,” Scarlet urges. “It would be so nice to be near our mate again. To have him hold us in his arms… And to be free to be ourselves…”
I know my wolf is starting to feel tense again. I’ve been tired, light–headed sometimes, but I want to wait until the absolutely last moment before seeing him again.
Yes, I enjoyed myself. Thoroughly. So good that I fanaticized about our coupling every night since, touching myself in the dark, trying and failing to mirror the way he touched me.
Chapter 32
+25 BONUS
But I have to be careful.
“We need to set and keep clear boundaries,” I say. “That means we can’t give in every time he wants to.” Her disappointment is palpable. While I hate to disappoint her, I have to be firm on this.
We need to keep everything about this transactional. I am te sleep with Hugh only to soothe my wolf and the bond, not for enjoyment. If that line gets crossed, too easily my heart could become compromised.
I won’t forget how terribly the brothers have treated me these past few years. Each horrible moment has been a warning clear as day that they are not fit to be my long–term lovers, let alone my mates.
If and when I meet with Hugh again, it will be at my discretion when I feel I’m strong enough to avoid his charms.
This is physical. Nothing else.
So I start a reply.
Busy tonight.
This is a soft rejection for tonight, as well as a lack of commitment for the future. But it also doesn’t totally shut the door.
I hit send, and try to feel satisfied with myself.
No matter what happens, I cannot fall for the quadruple
