Page 61 of An Unexpected Claim

She still didn’t say anything, so I started toward the hallway. Right before I left the room, I called over my shoulder, “And baby, if I have to drag your ass back to the house one more time, I will break out the cuffs. And don’t think for one second that I won’t follow through with my threat to give you a proper spanking.” Then I strode to my bedroom, a corner of my mouth kicking up when I heard her litany of curses. I was dead serious, but still, she was cute when she was pissed. Fucking sexy too.

When I returned to the kitchen she wasn’t there, and I assumed she’d gone to her room to dress as well. I was nearly done with our meal when she wandered into the room in an oversized T-shirt and tiny shorts, her hair down and her feet bare except for their blood-red toenails.

Another outfit I approved of when we were alone, but I’d have to tell the guys on her detail not to look inside the house and just watch for people coming and going. Better yet, I had a few female enforcers and plenty of female operatives at KBO whom I could assign to her.

My wolfbrushed his fur under my skin and urged me to go to her, to touch her, just be near her. But I had work to do, and I wanted to have a conversation with Peyton first. If I went near her, we would not be talking.

She sat at the island where I indicated by sliding her plate in front of it, then she quietly ate.

I watched her for a few minutes, trying to figure out how to proceed. Maybe if I extended an olive branch we could come to some kind of agreement. Every time she’d run off, I’d had the impression it was because she didn’t have anything to do. So I’d been considering options and was confident I’d found one that would work out well for both of us.

“I’ve been thinking,” I started, my own lunch forgotten in front of me. “I know you’re bored. Now that you’re the alpha female of the pack, there are responsibilities you could take over if you’d like.”

Her head popped up at that and I expected to see a smile of gratitude for giving her something to do and a way to begin becoming a part of her new pack. Hopefully, as soon as she started to feel at home here, the first connection would finally snap into place and she’d show up in the web of connections among all the members of my pack.

Instead, she was glaring at me, her eyes sharp and icy. Her tone was equally cold when she snapped, “I amnotthe alpha female of this pack. We arenotmates. And I willnotbe staying here indefinitely.”

I sighed and opened a drawer, grabbed a hair band, and slammed it shut. After putting my hair in a top knot, I dumped my food in the trash and put the dish in the sink. When I felt I had a handle on my temper, I turned back to her. “You’re going to have to accept this eventually, baby. If you think about it logically, it’s what makes sense. We have similar personalities and”—I smiled, trying to draw her out of her shell—“when you’re not pissing me off, I enjoy your company. The chemistry between us is hot as hell. We burn up the sheets like nothing I’ve ever experienced in the bedroom. What’s more, you’re having my pup. It’s the best scenario for all of us.”

“Is it?” Peyton hopped off the stool and stared at me, completely unreadable, more closed off than I’d ever seen her. I was floored when she spoke again, and her frosty tone actually sent a shiver through me. My wolf growled in frustration, not happy with the deep freeze he felt radiating from his mate. “If the time I’ve been here is any indication of what a future with you looks like, then you’ve lost your fucking mind if you think I would consider it for even a minute.”

I grabbed onto the edge of the granite countertop and squeezed so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if it cracked. I searched inside myself for my patience, but the slippery motherfucker kept evading my grasp. “I know you—”

“I don’t think you do,” Peyton interrupted. “The truth is that we barely know each other, Nathan. You assume that I’ve been going out for a run because I’m bored. Did it ever occur to you that this goes against my very nature?”

I frowned, not quite understanding her point. “Staying inside?”

She crossed her arms over her chest but remained hard and stiff. “Stayinghere. Not the house, although that certainly hasn’t helped. Here, as in Silver Lake, New York, sometimes even the whole freaking United States!” Her mask cracked and revealed a glimmer of panic in her eyes. “The longer I stay here, in one place, the more claustrophobic I feel.”

Peyton walked forward and leaned on the island across from me, her emerald pools swirling with gold flecks and flashing with her panther every so often. “Listen to me, Nathan. Eventually, every breath will feel as though it’s choking me. You don’t get it because you were born to be an alpha, to settle down, have a family, all that domestic stuff that makes me feel like I’m wrapped in chains just thinking about it.”

I could see the truth in her eyes, but while I knew that was what shebelieved, I didn’t buy it. Not completely anyway. I was beginning to see that there would always be a part of Peyton that would need to break free for a time, to be unbridled. But no matter how deeply hidden it was, I’d seen the glimpses of another side of Peyton. In her relationship with Sam and Linette, her interaction with my mother, even in the very brief moment I’d spent with her, Emerald, and Samantha. Neither of those two would stand with someone they didn’t have faith in. But more than anything, I knew Samantha wouldn’t be able to handle losing another friend. Something had happened between her and Peyton. They’d forged a bond that neither one was willing to relinquish, and it was one more string connecting Peyton to Silver Lake.

Sam had mentioned that Peyton was from somewhere upstate, and that NYC was her…home base, he’d called it. Even though she didn’t recognize it as such, she’d given herself a place to land, somewhere that was the center of her world. Then she flew from there and while she didn’t return in between every move, eventually, she returned home. Perhaps the first step was to convince her to make Silver Lake the new center of her universe. Samantha and Emerald might be willing to help me with that, but it would have to wait.

This conversation definitely hadn’t gone as I’d expected, and it wouldn’t do any good to continue until I’d had time to study it out in my mind. Peyton didn’t appear to be in any mood to listen to reason anyway.

Before anything, I needed to make sure she was safe.

But there was one thing that couldn’t wait. “What about the baby?”

Peyton’s hand went to her stomach and rested there. “I will never keep you from our child, Nathan.”

I canted my head and narrowed my eyes. “And how exactly would that work if I’m here and you’re off who knows where? Because I don’t intend to be the ‘every other weekend and one month in the summer’ kind of dad. And I don’t see you as the type to abandon your child.”

“Of course not,” she snapped.

“So, if you’re not staying, have you thought about how that would work?”

“Believe it or not, I have, Nathan. I’m not so callous that I would make a decision like that without considering you and talking to you.”

My eyes roamed her beautiful face and I wondered, if we had a daughter, would she be as gorgeous as her mother? I needed to be around to protect her, just as I needed to keep Peyton safe. I refused to live without either of them. For now though, it was enough to know that she was planning on making the decisions for our child together.

“We can talk about this another time,” I said, breaking a long silence that had built between us. “For now, will you please either stay on my property or take an enforcer with you so that I know you are protected?”

Peyton’s hard exterior melted a little and she nodded. “I promise. Thank you for asking and not demanding for a change.”

I hadn’t realized I’d softened my language. Maybe I needed to reconsider more about the approach I’d been taking with Peyton. People might say you couldn’t teach old dogs new tricks, but when it came to immortal dogs, the one lesson we all learned if we were to survive was to adapt. More to think about when the time was right.

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