Page 77 of Knot Their Girl
“He is,” I admit out loud. “He’s been mine for a while. He’s got this way about him, it’s hard to explain. He can calm me down, pull me off the edge, without even trying. He’s sweet.”
“You probably have a thing for stepping on alpha toes, but I can totally see you needing someone sweet.”
I shoot my friend an icy glare, but it only makes her chuckle. “You’re lucky I don’t take that sandwich away and kick you out right now.”
She grins. “You wouldn’t.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t. All this personal growth on my part is disgusting.” This time, when she laughs, I join in.
If this is my life, I can get used to it. Maybe having a pack wouldn’t be so bad.
Chapter Thirty-Two – Gideon
An email Thursday morning puts me in a mood, and not a particularly good mood at that. I read it over once, then twice, three times before I push myself away from my computer and take a walk through the house to clear my head.
Bradford Bentley, following up yet again. Seeing me at the dinner party must’ve reignited his desire to buy me out of Chase Jewels.
Prior to now, I always had other things going on, such as taking care of Colter and making sure my nephew lived to see another day. I never let Bradford’s offers upset me. Today, however, is a different story. I can’t help but feel irritated at his persistence.
I head upstairs, hoping to find Raeka, but she isn’t in her room. I didn’t see her downstairs either, so it must mean she’s spending some time with Colter—and if that’s the case, I don’t want to interrupt. So, I head further down the hall and come across Pax’s room.
The alpha is in the middle of working out with dumbbells, wearing tight, black athletic clothes that show off his musculature. As an über, he’s built differently. Bigger. Thicker. Stronger all around. A king among alphas, truly.
He sits on his bed, doing curls of some sort, and though his back is to me, he must sense me, because he grunts, “Are you going to come in or stand there and watch?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt—” I don’t step inside his bedroom; it feels like a private space… or maybe that’s just my inner alpha bowing to his.
Pax pauses his workout, leaning to set the heavy dumbbell on the floor before he turns his head. His light blond hair is slickwith sweat, but his green eyes are as alert as ever. “Just come in and tell me what’s wrong.”
I barely had to say anything for him to know something is off with me; yet another indication that we’re on the same wavelength.
Heaving a sigh, I step into his room and pace the length of it. “I got an email from Bradford Bentley.”
His brows furrow as he watches me pace his room. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
Oh, right. He wasn’t with Raeka and I at the dinner party, so he wasn’t introduced to him. I explain, “He’s… a competitor, basically. He runs Alpha Life, a company that’s recently overtaken Chase Jewels in sales and growth. He’s wanted to buy me out of my share of the company for years now. I thought he’d given up. Raeka and I were unfortunate enough to see him at the dinner party, and it seems to have rekindled his desire to get what he wants.”
“So tell him you don’t want to sell.” The way Pax says it, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, makes me stop and stare at him. “Or,” he says once he notes my expression, “tell him you’ll sell?”
I set my hands on my hips and shake my head once.
Finally, he gets it. “You don’t know what you want to do.”
“Before, when it was just Colter and I… I never really paid much thought to his offers. They were always generous, yes, but the Chase name used to mean something. I always thought once I set Colter on the right path, things would go back to the way they used to be, but now I don’t know if that’s even possible.”
Pax stands and stretches. He cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders. “If you don’t want to sell, then don’t. But if you do want to sell, I’m sure everyone will understand.”
“I… don’t know. For the first time, I feel like I’m actually entertaining the notion of selling. A part of me wonders ifwashing my hands of the company for good would make things easier.”
“How so?” He folds his arms over his chest and cocks his head at me.
I’ve always known I wasn’t quite a normal alpha. Not as tall as some, not as thick as some. My eyes aren’t that good—an affliction the majority of alphas don’t deal with. Being in a room alone with an alpha like Pax should put me on edge, especially since he basically came into my territory and helped to throw my life into an upheaval.
But we’re past that point now, I think. When I look into the alpha’s emerald stare, I only see one thing: pack.
“It’s a reminder of where both Colter and I have been, where we came from. Selling it might help us move on… if moving on is a true option.”
Pax lets out a deep lungful of air. “Maybe you don’t need to move on. Maybe you haven’t been doing well with your company because you’ve been trying to replicate shit you did in the past. You’ve been trying to hold on to the company’s past image. I’m no businessman, but I do know everything changes with time. Just look at us.”
