Page 23 of Craving Their Omega

“Hi,” Penelope says. “It’s nice to meet you…”

“Fletcher,” he fills in. “Come in, the others are waiting.”

Dominic and Xavier are already seated in a comfortable waiting area, both of them already with drinks in front of them.

“Can I get either of you anything?” Fletcher asks. “Water, wine, soda?”

“I’ll take a ginger ale if you have it,” Penelope asks. “If not, water is more than fine.”

“A ginger ale for the lady. And for you, Mr. Blackwell?” He looks at me expectantly, and I just lift an eyebrow and then go to sit in one of the arm chairs in the waiting area.

Fletcher doesn’t seem shaken by my lack of response, and I imagine he’s dealt with all manner of bridezillas, horrible mother in laws, and men who want to be doing anything other than planning their own weddings. He doesn’t seem fazed by anything, and it makes me glad we went with him out of the long list of candidates who would have been chomping at the bit to plan this wedding.

“Hey, Penelope,” Xavier is saying, grinning at her. “Come sit by me.”

She smiles back at him and goes to do so, smiling at Dominic as she passes. She seems nervous, and I can’t say I blame her. This is the last thing she probably could have ever guessed she’d be doing on a Sunday afternoon, and with the last people she probably ever expected to be doing it with.

But she’s holding her own well enough.

“I’ll be right back with your drink, Ms. Dalton,” Fletcher says, ducking out of the room.

Once we’re alone, Xavier smiles mischievously. “We have something for you,” he says to Penelope. “Something from all of us.”

Penelope looks between the three of us, and I nod to Xavier. He pulls a ring box out of his jacket pocket and sets it on the table, pushing it toward Penelope.

“What’s this?” she asks, looking down at the box and then up at Xavier.

“Open it and see,” he replies, winking at her.

She picks up the velvet box, holding it like it’s something precious as she lifts the lid. I already know that inside are three rings, each one nestled in a soft satin lining.

Each one is thin, made of pale gold. Instead of all three having a stone set in the center, each one has a slightly different shape, so that when worn together, the three will make a stack that looks like an elegant, cohesive unit.

Penelope’s breath catches as she gazes at the rings in their box, and her fingers shake slightly as she reaches in to trace the delicate oval cut diamond in the center ring.

“This is… oh my god. This is so much. Too much.” She looks up at each of us in turn. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“Yes, we did,” Dominic says. “It has to look real.”

“But these can’t have been cheap,” Penelope argues. “You could have just gotten something that would pass as a wedding ring and left it at that.”

Dominic scoffs, folding his arms. “And have people say we’re cheap and don’t take care of our wife? That wouldn’t work at all. The three of us have set a standard for the way we live, and there’s no way we wouldn’t carry that standard when it comes to giving a ring to our wife.”

“Imagine all the articles about how cheap the CEOs of Vantage are if we gave you something cheap,” Xavier says. “That would piss off the investors as much as our bickering.”

Penelope glances at me, and I just nod to the box, drawing her attention back to the rings.

“I guess that makes sense,” she says, swallowing hard. “I just… Thank you. They’re beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like them,” Xavier says cheerfully. “We made our best guess at your ring size, so if anything needs to be resized we can do that.”

“I’m sure they’re perfect,” she says quickly. Instead of putting the rings on, she closes the box and folds her fingers around it, holding on to it like it’s something precious to her.

Fletcher comes back in with her ginger ale and a water for me, placing each drink in front of us. “Now,” he says. “I’ll get some input from the grooms eventually, but for the first part of this, I want to hear what you have in mind for this wedding, Penelope. Will you come over here with me?”

She blinks in surprise, but gathers her drink and the ring box and goes to the other side of the room with Fletcher.

Xavier watches her go, a little smile on his face, and I force myself not to do the same thing. To watch her go, not to smile. I can control my face better than Xavier can on my worst day.

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