She didn’t reply, the only sound her breathing. I wasn’t sure what she was going to do next. In her eyes, I’d ruined her life. It didn’t matter that she’d tried to sell me off to a crime family to pay off a fraction of the debt she’d wracked up. The fact that I hadn’t gone along with it, made it my fault.
“You’re an ungrateful—”
Exactly as I’d expected. I cut her off.
“Shut up. I’m not calling as your daughter, so maybe I should have called you Edith. I’m calling as your boss.”
“Excuse me?”
“You owe millions of dollars—not to the Connollys, but to Soren Rosania. I’m in his employ, and he’s given me the absolute pleasure of being in charge of you.”
“There is no—”
“Did you not understand what I meant when I told you to stop speaking?” I asked. My smile was growing wider every second. I was grinning like a goddamn fool in my car. “We’ll be speaking regularly, because I get to tell you everything you have to do. I tell you which high society soirées to attend. Which people to talk to. Which gossip to fish for. When to stay home, and when to go out. So, kind of like what you’ve been doing to me for the past two years of my life. Except for you, this is the rest of your life.”
She was breathing heavily. I would have killed to see the expression on her face—but I did plan onseeingher as little as humanly possible. We could keep our conversations to phone calls.
“Call Lyra. Ask her who’s your boss now, and she’ll tell you the same thing. Then, the next time I call, you’re going to answer the phone. Day or night. Any hour.”
I wanted to ask her if she understood, to force her to say yes. I wasn’t keen on dealing with her vitriol, though.
So I hung up.
For the first time, I hung up on her instead of her hanging up on me.
That alone might be worth being Soren’s errand girl for a while.
I turned my keys to start the engine and pulled off the curb, and the smile lasted for the rest of the damn day.
SIXTY-SEVEN
KIARA
“I’ve never done this before,” I admitted softly.
Dash’s arms came around me, his breath brushing my ear. “Don’t worry, little omega. I can help you.”
His touch was warm against me, and he grabbed a couple of items from the dining room table in front of us. Mercury snorted from the sidelines, and I glanced over to see him rolling his eyes.
“If Dash can learn it, so can you,” Mercury stated. “All he did was binge watch sewing videos online. He’d never touched a sewing needle before we got this delivered. You’ve spent plenty of time hand sewing, haven’t you princess?”
I bit my lip, flushing. Having Mercury calling me ‘princess’ still felt fake, but he hadn’t grown distant with me. My heat had ended days ago, and he was being as affectionate as ever. Not as overtly as Dash, obviously, but in his own ways.
“Yes. It was one of the only things Father let me do. Sewing and playing piano. And I hated piano.”
“The machine will be easy, then.”
Dash hummed his agreement, his chest rumbling with a purr. I relaxed back against him, watching his hands work to thread the machine.
I’d been constantly tired since my heat ended, enough that Mercury had been trying to insist I see a doctor. Leighton had—thankfully—shut the idea down. She claimed it was fine for me to take a while to recover, considering my heat had been traumatic.
There was a phantom clench of my stomach, an echo of the pain that had felt like it was eating me from the inside.
My mates both stiffened, my flash of fear not hidden from the bonds. Especially when my bondmarks were fresh on them, claiming all the alphas as mine and refreshing the temporary bonds.
“Maybe she should go back to the nest,” Mercury said tightly. “This might be too much.”
His arms were crossed over his chest and he scowled at Dash.
