“I don’t. I’m just saying I could have, that’s all.”
“But you weren’t.” Dad chuckled.
“So I was the last choice.”
“Third choice,” Sebastian corrected.
“I’m failing to see the difference.” Reid frowned, shaking his head.
“There is the entire rest of the pack that I didn’t ask,” Dad said, clapping him on the shoulder. “So, third choice.”
“I can go with them now,” I told him. “Since Haven went back to town.”
“All right,” he agreed. “I would like to speak to you alone for a moment first, though, before you head out.”
I nodded, crossed my arms, and stood there, waiting as everyone else left.
“Do you need to talk about it?” he asked me once the door shut again, raising a brow.
“Not really,” I told him, even though that was the whole reason I’d barged into his meeting in the first place. “It will work itself out.”
It had to.
“Are you sure about this—about this plan of pretending to follow through with this agreement?”
“Honestly? No. But you said yourself you’ve been looking for an in. This is it. We might never find another option to get an in-depth look at his records and the workings of his businesses. We need this.”
“You need to be careful, Wes. You need to get any trace of Haven’s scent off of you and out of your house and your truck,” he said.
My lycan growled in displeasure at that suggestion. I had to hold in my own snarl as well.
My dad was right, but the thought of erasing any trace of her scent did not sit well with me. But I had to do it if I wanted to convince Timothy that Nicole would be my one and only once the agreement went through. Not that it would go through. But still.
“Also, you won’t be able to contact Haven until we’re one hundred percent done with this farce,” he added. “We don’t know if Timothy has eyes on or in our pack. We can’t risk drawing any more attention to her than is already on her. That means you need to be careful about sending Nolan or anyone else to watch her, and you can’t be sneaking out to get a glimpse of her.”
I ground my teeth together at his words, at the alpha order underneath them. It burned my biscuits that he knew what I had been thinking I could do to make sure she was safe until this bullshit was over.
“You good?” he asked, raising a brow at me.
“I’m fine,” I spat. “We’ll be done with this by the end of the weekend, anyway.”
“And if we’re not?”
I sighed, pushing the question away because I wasn’t ready to even consider that as an option.
“I’m not going to worry about that until I have to.”
**********
“You really do reek of Haven and sex,” Reid said as we made our way through the trees towards where the rogues were camped out.
We kept our steps light, our eyes cast downward to avoid sticks and crackling underbrush.
“I know,” I replied, working to keep the smug, self-satisfied grin off my face.
My lycan didn’t care, though. He preened in my head, happy to keep her jasmine and sweet fruit scent on us for a bit longer.
“How many times did she give it up to you?” Reid asked, smirking. I cocked a brow at him but said nothing. “Is she a screamer? I feel like she would be a screamer. The quiet ones always are.”