Page 36 of Knight Life In Vegas

Sammy was on her heels, snatching up the container of jelly beans and racing away.

Charlotte sighed and went after him. “Sammy, those are for treats. Let me portion them out or you’ll have them everywhere!”

Charlotte’s youngest stared at me with a discerning eye.

“Hello, Oliver.” Bless Ava for reminding me of their full names.

Charlotte came back down the hall with Sammy under one arm and the jelly beans in the other, her son laughing the whole way until she deposited him on the couch. She side-eyed me. “We’re not providing A/C to the hallway. Get in here.”

I snapped to attention and stepped inside the apartment, closing the door behind me. Chaos was a good word to describe her home. I wasn’t certain how she managed to navigate without tripping. Toys littered the floor, baskets of unfolded laundry sat lined up on the coffee table, and a sink full of dishes waited to be done. She poured a serving of jelly beans into two small plastic bowls and passed them to each of her sons before finally returning her attention to me, moving just out of arm’s reach.

Her pupils dilated, her lips softly parting. “I hate that you’re right.”

“I wish I weren’t.”

“Thank you for the sweets and flowers.” She finally took the flowers from me and set them on the small square of space still available on her counter, then returned for the peanut butter cups that she stashed in the back of the freezer. “If I don’t hide them, I don’t get them,” she explained when she caught me staring.

“Do you… need help?” I asked, my gaze helplessly drawn to the mess I was entirely unused to. I had forgotten that living with small children was like having a bomb go off every day.

“You came over to talk, right? Not to do chores.”

Help her. Help our omega.

I shoved the thought ruthlessly down. I might offer my assistance, but Charlotte was far from mine. “Please. I know it’s a lot of work being a parent. I’m sure we could both use a distraction while getting through this conversation.”

Charlotte sighed again. “You’re damn right about that. Are you any good at folding laundry?”

This was so deeply unfair I didn’t even know what to do. Sending the boys to their room to eat their jelly beans and watch cartoons on the tablet gave me peace in one sense, but then that left me alone with Beau and his maddeningly perfect scent. Vanilla musk and cinnamon with a hint of lavender. I knew he was wealthy, but I didn’t expect him tosmellexpensive too.

I wrestled down the instinctive desire to plaster myself against him. I needed to stay in control.

“How do you like your towels folded?” he asked, pausing in front of my mountains of laundry.

“In half, then in half again, then in thirds. They don’t fit in the linen closet otherwise.”

He nodded stiffly and cleared himself a space to sit on the couch, nudging things away so he had a folding space. Seeing a man folding laundry was almost a surreal experience. We had a laundry service back in New York for the last decade, and before that, Andrew couldn’t have been bothered. Beau didn’t seem like he would have any experience with household chores either, but he followed the instruction to a T, so I let him be while I tackled the dishes.

I allowed the silence to go on for a few minutes, but we were on borrowed time with my children’s attention span, so I forced myself to speak. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Bryce suggested I temporarily move here.”

My stupid little heart fluttered. It had no business getting excited over that when I didn’t even know him. “That doesn’t sound like something you’d want to do.”

“It’s not, but I understand my request for you to come to New York was intolerably selfish.”

“Definitely was,” I agreed, slotting a stack of plates away in the cupboard.

“I know this won’t come as a surprise to you, but I’m only really used to dealing with people in a business capacity.”

“Shocking.” I offered him a small smile. I could see he was trying, even if he wasn’t particularly successful.

“The only purpose for my coming here for an extended time would be to alleviate this abnormal stress from the scent match. If you’re not open to that, then there’s no point.”

I chewed my lip. I had already been more unstable than usual after slipping away into the night on my other scent matches. Maybe having Beau around would help.

“There would have to be rules,” I said.

“Obviously. Neither of us want the match. Our interactions would purely be to reduce our respective discomfort. I understand you don’t know the identities of your other scent matches?”

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