Page 83 of Knight Life In Vegas

After ignoring it all as best we could for a couple of hours while Charlotte got the boys off to their day program, we were finally forced to deal with the fallout.

“I still don’t even understand how we bonded.” Charlotte curled up on the couch, one of her pillows clutched to her chest. She looked so small, vulnerable. I ached to gather her up and tell her everything was going to be fine. So I did, drawing her onto my lap and cocooning her in my arms. Whenever we touched, our collective anxiety diminished significantly. Momentarily, at least, until I thought about how it would rip me apart at the seams if anything ever happened to her.

I couldn’t survive that loss twice.

“I understand with Ava where she had a heat flush because she was pregnant and unbonded, but why did it happen withme?”

I hadn’t a clue why something would have triggered. We’d slept together before and nothing had happened.

At some point we would have to explain to her children that I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Luckily, they seemed to like me well enough so far. I stared at the wall, letting my eyes go out of focus. There was no undoing a bond, even if I didn’t understand how it happened or why.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked quietly.

How could I ever be mad at her? “Not at you. The situation is not ideal.”

“I didn’t mean to bite. I’m so?—”

“Charlotte. I promise I’mnotmad at you. I bit right back. Instincts don’t care about what plans we had, and it’s not the fault of either of us.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I am. Let’s focus on one problem at a time,” I said. “Who do we need to tell first?”

Her buzzer doorbell went off, jolting both of us.

“Shit.” Charlotte nudged me, getting me to sit up so she could go answer it. “They’re picking me up to go to the arena today so I can design some lesson stuff.”

Oh joy. Her other scent matches werenotwho I wanted to face right now, but in fairness, they were probably the ones who most needed to know about this development.

“Good morning, princess!” Dylan’s voice came over the speaker.

“Come on up.” She let them in and we both waited, dread cycling through the bond.

They flooded into her apartment, Dylan with a box of donuts, Eduardo with smoothies, and Francisco with a bouquet of mixedflowers. All three of them stopped short, gazes darting between the two of us.

“Uh, yeah,” Charlotte began. “Something happened last night.”

“I’m not trying to step on your claim,” I told them. “The bond was unintentional, and frankly we don’t even know how it was possible.”

Eduardo was the first to recover. “So, what does this mean now?”

“The plan is still the same,” I explained. “Whatever you three have going on with Charlotte, continue as you would have before. I still have to return to New York at some point and she doesn’t want to accompany me. Las Vegas is her home and it will remain that way unless she changes her mind.”

I curled my fingers into her hand, needing the anchor of her touch. The bond would calm down in time, but for now, even the brief thought of returning to New York turned my stomach.

Charlotte reached out for the flowers Francisco had clutched in his grip. “These are beautiful, thank you.”

She bustled into the kitchen to put them in water, though lacking a proper vase, she cut them down, separated them into a few glasses and set them across the windowsill above the sink.

“We brought treats, in case you were hungry,” said Dylan, joining her in the kitchen with the donuts. I had missed preparing breakfast for everyone in our panic, the boys eating cereal before being rushed out the door. Charlotte and I hadn’t had anything.

“Get something into your stomach,” I told her. “Everything will look better after a meal.”

The five of us hovered awkwardly in her apartment, eating donuts and drinking smoothies, one of which they had thoughtfully brought for me.

“Are you coming to the arena with us?” Francisco asked. “I don’t imagine you’ll want to be separated from Charlotte for a while. You can use my office to work if you’d like.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised by their accommodation. They were good men so far as I could tell in our limited acquaintance, and I had no qualms about leaving Charlotte in their capable hands when I had to leave, but it was still kind of them to consider me.

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