Page 22 of Vegas Baby!

“He knows I wear gold,” she said quietly, lifting the ring from its resting place.

Engraved on the inside was the phraseHope you’re happy now.

“What does that mean?” She turned to me.

I didn’t want to tell her that it looked like a shut-up ring to me. Instead, I asked, “Have you been asking to get engaged for a while?”

“I’ve been hinting. I thought he was going to propose when I graduated university, but he didn’t, and I thought again when I told him about the baby…If he was going to propose this weekend, why did he get so weird about it?”

“Some men give their partner a ring to make them stop asking when they’ll get married. He was probably intending to string you along for a while longer after giving that to you.”

Ava’s face pinched with fury and she threw the ring down on the bed. “I hate him.”

“Let’s go hate him back in Bryce’s room.”

“Wait.” She tugged a thin gold band with a floral pattern off her finger and set it down next to where the engagement ring had landed.

“Did he give you that?”

Ava nodded. “A promise ring. He gave it to me the first time he flew me out for a conference weekend. I don’t understand how he could hate me that much, or hate his wife and kids. Why not just leave?”

“I’m assuming it was that he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Loving wife and kids at home, pretty girlfriend for when he traveled. You all deserve so much better than him.”

I hoisted up her suitcase and hustled her back down the hallway where she would be safe and secure, texting Bryce as soon as I locked the door.

“I’m going to see if I can get some time off work,” I told her. “A couple of weeks shouldn’t be an issue.”

“You don’t have to do that for me.”

“I’m doing it for me too. I wasn’t expecting a new bond to hit quite that hard.” I gathered her in close, breathing in her pecan praline scent. “This is exactly where I want to be. We have a lot of stuff to figure out and not a ton of time to do that before our baby makes its way into the world.”

Ava looked up at me, her hazel eyes impossibly wide. “Why are you being so sweet?”

“You’re my mate. I don’t take that lightly. I’m going to do whatever needs to be done to make sure that you’re safe and comfortable, and that we’re all ready to be partners and parents.”

My omega melted against me. “Thank you. Maybe fate knows what it’s talking about.”

“I would hope so. Want to cuddle?”

“Yes, please.”

I stripped down to my underwear, and Ava switched her dress for a nightgown, climbing in next to me and burrowing under the blankets.

“Hotels are not good at providing enough blankets.”

“We can pick you up some nesting supplies before we go back to the apartment,” I offered.

“How mad do you think Luke is going to be that we left?”

“I’m hoping that Micah will chill him out.”

“He’s good at that?”

“The best,” I promised. “Don’t worry about them, though. I’ll play mediator and everything will work out; it just might take some time.”

I curled around Ava, her purr rumbling. I might not know what to do with the blessing fate had dropped in my lap, but I knew for damn sure I wasn’t going to squander it.

“You can’t get rid of a bondmate.” I kept telling Luke that, and he kept performing some Olympian-level mental gymnastics to get around that reality.

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