Page 172 of Defiant Beta

“Uh, huh.”

“And you did those things because…”

“That wasn’t the right place for her, or for anyone, especially not as it is now. There has to be a better way that doesn’t involve changing omegas into someone they’re not. She wasn’t happy, and I didn’t notice.” I lift her chin gently, meeting her gaze. "And then I caught a beautiful redhead with these pretty freckled thighs, and something happened to me."

She blushes, looking around. “You can’t talk about my freckled thighs on the street, Xavier.”

I hold her gaze. “I felt like I was the one falling. You opened my eyes to things I never even noticed before. I started falling then, and I never stopped. I love you, Della Jackson, and I want to build a life with you.”

She sniffs, eyes glassy. “Stuff like this doesn’t happen to me.”

“Stuff like what?” I wrap an arm around her shoulder and draw her closer, tucking her under my chin.

“Candlelit dinners. Hot guys coming into my work and dragging me out for a lunch date.” She stops, stares up at me. “You know?”

“It happens now, and it’s going to keep on happening until you accept that it won’t stop.”

“I love you, too,” she whispers.

I damn near crush her, I’m that fucking happy.

“Will you come with me?”

“To?” I would give this woman the stars if she wanted them.

She peels her face from my chest. “Quit a job I hate so I can start building a life with three alphas that I love?”

I grin at her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter 50

Della

I jolt awake.

“What was that?” I whisper, staring up at the ceiling in my almost pitch-black room.

It’s sweltering under my comforter, but outside, the tip of my nose is cold, and I’m in no rush to get up and investigate the sound that woke me.

“Please don’t let my decision to spend one more night in this apartment be a mistake.” The kind that gets me killed.

I hear it again.

A scraping thump.

Twisting my head toward my window, I frown.

What the hell is…

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty!” A man's voice calls out from outside my window. It’s followed seconds later by someone screaming at him to shut the fuck up. People have to work in the morning.

The voice is faint but heart-achingly familiar.

Levi.

Smiling, I wrap the comforter around myself and turn on the lamp on my way to the window, muttering a curse when I tripover one of the many boxes Xavier helped me pack after I quit my job.

There’s not much more left to pack. Xavier said Levi and Vincent would be free to help me move tomorrow. They couldn’t earlier since they were busy with guests, whatever that had meant.

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