Page 97 of Believe it or Knot

I don’t say anything and neither does he as he guides me into the elevator after using his handprint to get it to open. Another scan and we’re zooming up to the top floor.

“Do we need to have a chat with someone?” He asks, staring straight ahead, and with a perfectly neutral voice, but I can tell the good doctor is fuming… on my behalf.

It makes me cry harder. “No,” I choke out. “No. I just… I need a place to get myself together. I won’t be here long. Promise.”

He tsks and grips my elbow again as the lift slows to a stop. “You can stay as long as you need, Sor.”

“Not long,” I repeat, even if some part of me knows it’s a lie.

I can’t fathom going anywhere else in the state I’m in, and I can’t fathom breaking out of this all-encompassing heartbreak anytime soon.

The elevator slows and stops. There’s a ding as the doors slide open, and the combined scents of the Falcone pack smack me in the face. Mock me. I was going to have a pack, and now I won’t.

Because they didn’t have the faintest clue who I actually was, because they never believed that who I showed them was the real me. A lie. A manipulation. That’s what they see Sorrel Forbes as.

“It’s about time you got back, alpha,” Sadie purrs from somewhere in the penthouse. “I’ve been such a good-”

Logan clears his throat and tugs me forward with his grip on my elbow. “We have a guest, mo cuishle.”

“Sorrel?” Sadie pops up in front of me, wearing a male’s button down dress shirt, red lipstick and nothing else.

I flinch back toward the elevator, embarrassment crawling over my skin. I’ve interrupted them. They obviously had some kind of rendezvous planned and I’m ruining it.

“I’m sorry,” I say, forcing a smile to my lips that is directly at odds with the tears that won’t stop falling from my eyes. “I didn’t think… I’ll go.”

Logan’s hand tightens on me at the same time that my friend lunges forward and wraps her tiny body around mine in a tight hug. “No,” she says fiercely. “No, you aren’t going anywhere. You haven’t told me who I need to kill for hurting you.”

It only makes me cry harder, my face buried in her cherry pie scented neck, clinging to her as she strokes my hair and murmurs reassuring things that sound nice but don’t mean anything. Mostly about how she’ll castrate whoever hurt me. Or Swift will. Or Luca. Maddox. Anyone of her alphas will happily do her bidding in destroying whatever has me so upset. Ethan, their pack beta, can hack into any computer system and destroy their financials, dig up secrets. “We can blackmail them!” She all but croons in a soft voice.

We stay in front of her elevator just like that until I stop sobbing uncontrollably. Until the elevator opens and another soft body that smells like honeyed nectarines presses into my back, cocooning me in omega scents and pheromones, enough so that I can get myself under control.

“What did I miss?” Sylvie asks as I straighten up from Sadie’s shoulder. Her hand strokes down the back of my head, petting me in a way that probably shouldn’t feel as soothing as it does.

Sadie frowns as she looks worriedly at me. “I’m not sure. We haven’t gotten around to talking about it yet.” She squeezes my fingers, gently. “Feel like sharing with the class, Sor?”

Vee moves around to face me and my mouth opens, closes, and then opens again, before I shake my head. I don’t even really know where to start. They don’t know I was seeing the Cordova pack. I didn’t want to jinx it by getting too excited about it. I had planned to tell them about it today after the interview, so that my best friends didn’t discover I was the newest member of the Cordova pack at the same time the rest of the world did.

But now… Now I’m too tired to explain everything. Too heartbroken to rehash the details. Too fuzzy headed to even make sense of it. I shake my head again. “Not right now, if-if that’s okay? I just can’t-” My lower lip wobbles and they both lunge forward, wrapping me up tight before guiding me over to the couch.

“Of course it’s okay,” Vee says, pressing me down into the cushion.

“You can tell us whenever you’re ready,” Sadie adds, draping a blanket over my lap. She picks up a remote and presses a button that dims the lights, and a movement later they’re snuggled in to either side of me. The TV turns on.

“Should we watch a Liam Cordova movie?”

Oh, god, just hearing his name feels like my heart is ripping out of my chest. “No,” I choke out. “No. Not Li- not him. Let’s put on that Howard Garcia movie. The one about the spies.”

I feel them exchange a look behind my head, but pointedly ignore it. Sure, in the past, I’d never choose to watch a Howard Garcia movie. None of us would. We’d laughed about how he was trying to be like Liam, with none of the charm or romance that seems to cling to the omega actor.

But the last thing I want is charm and romance, so this will be perfect.

Track 22: Moral of the Story

“It’s bad,” I hear Sadie mutter to Sylvie. “She’s been doing nothing but listening to ‘I’m Not That Girl’ from the Wicked soundtrack and ‘On My Own’ from Les Mis on repeat for the last three hours.”

I huff and roll over, using both hands to shove my hair out of my face. “It’s not that bad.” Only my voice comes out raspy and muted from snot and tears. “I’m also listening to ‘Almost Lover’ and ‘Last Love Song.’ “

“It is that bad,” Sadie says back, as Sylvie perches on the edge of the bed, one of her hands resting on my leg. “I’ve been listening to this swirl of sad for three hours.”

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