Page 120 of Priceless

OCEAN

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My legs bounced in the car, excitement pinging around inside me like a pinball going too fast. We were here. We were here, and we were going to see the ancient ruins I’d dreamed about since I was little.

None of it seemed real. Except there was an Alpha next to me, holding my hand on his thigh and rubbing his thumb over the back of my mine and he was very real. Which meant I was actually here.

Olive trees line the hills, leaves fluttering in the breeze off the sea. The pale bottoms of their leaves make all that fluttering look like glitter. I opened the car window, and the mild temperature seeped through the air, the fresh scent swirling and melding with Everett’s pistachio and almond.

Everett lifted my hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. When I looked at him, those blue eyes searched mine, and he smiled softly. So much more softly than he did with anyone else other than Cam and Micah.

My stomach did a flip.

“I want you to look like this all the time.”

“Should I buy stock in sundresses?”

He smiled and shook his head. “I love your dress, but that’s not what I mean. You look happy. You feel happy.”

A shiver of nerves ran along my skin as I bit my lip and took a risk. “I am happy.”

Not caring that this wasn’t a car with a separation from the driver, Rett pulled me and turned my body so I was draped across his lap and we were chest to chest. “What can we do to keep you this happy, even after we go home?” He cradled me with one arm, using the other to drift his knuckles over my cheek. “Anything.”

Keep me.

The words were on the tip of my tongue, and I held them back. We were in a different place now, but the bone-deep terror of it all falling apart still clung to me. I would talk to them, but together, and not today when everything was so beautiful.

“What’s going on in there, little nymph?”

“I’m not little,” I whispered, just like I had the first time he called me that.

His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “And I love exactly what you are. But I’m going to keep saying it anyway. Unless you hate it.”

I shook my head, breath short in my chest. I didn’t hate it. Definitely didn’t hate it. And he’d just said he loved me. He didn’t mean it that way, but I still grabbed onto that little memory and tucked it into the corner of my heart for later.

“Are you going to tell me what will make you happy?”

“I’ll think about it.”

Everett raised an eyebrow like he didn’t believe I needed time. He was right. I didn’t. But he smiled. “I will ask again.” It was a promise.

The car stopped, and Everett helped me out. There was a crowd of people in front of wrought-iron gates. Which wasn’t surprising, considering the ruins were the most popular tourist destination in the city. But we weren’t close yet, and no one was being let in past the gates. “Are the ruins closed?”

“Not for us.”

Our driver helped us maneuver through the crowd, and Everett showed his phone to the guard at the gate, who let us through. A couple of other people tried to follow, but they were kept back.

Stone paths wound up the hill through all the olive trees, and we were the only people walking those same paths. “Everett, what is going on? Shouldn’t this place be packed with people?”

He grinned. “Not today.”

“Why?”

Weaving our fingers together, he guided us to the larger of the paths in front of us. “Because we wanted you to experience this in the best way possible. Any pictures you wanted. As much time as you wanted. Wherever.” He glanced at his phone again. “Looks like there’s seven different ruins here. Do you know where you want to start?”

I stared at him before turning back to look at the gate and the crowd behind us. “Did you buy us an hour by ourselves?” The tickets I’d seen were based on time so people could flow in and out of the ruins without them getting overcrowded.

“We bought the whole day.”

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