Page 95 of Knot So Fast
"Make sure that crowd of crazed reporters leaves here in an hour," I call out just as the doors start to close. "We don't have time for more gossip after the hectic day we've had."
"Yes sir!" he declares, snapping to attention even as his brow furrows with lingering confusion.
The doors slide shut, and I immediately roll my eyes, letting the mask of casual charm drop. Annoyed doesn't even begin to cover what I'm feeling after the absolute bullshit confrontations I've endured all day. Every-fucking-where I went, cameras in my face, microphones shoved at me, reporters screaming questions about my "secret identity" as if it was some grand conspiracy that I exist.
Sure, I've been told plenty of times that I look like the four-time Formula One champion. It's exactly why I bleached my hair just a fraction lighter, added some subtle highlights—enough difference that people could write me off as a doppelganger or distant relative. The resemblance was uncanny but deniable.
A curiosity, not a scandal.
But now that it's actually out—now that the world knows we're twins—everyone's going to go down the rabbit hole.
Digging into our past, our family, why we've never been seen together, why one twin dominates the racing world while the other... what? What even am I in comparison?
The fuck-up? The shadow? The dirty secret the Wolfe family tried to bury?
Not good at all.
I bite my lip hard enough to taste copper, but even the sharp pain isn't enough to distract from what's really eating at me. The scene replays in my mind like a broken video loop—Lachlan defending Auren in front of all those flashing cameras, his hand possessive on her throat, before claiming her lips as if she were always his to claim.
In front of the entire fucking world.
The jealousy burns through my veins like acid, which is almost laughably selfish when I think about it. I've had her sole attention since the accident. For an entire year, I was the lucky bastard who got to keep fucking the woman we're all obsessed with. It felt like perfect payback at the time—I wasn't technicallypart of my brother's precious pack, but our Auren couldn't remember enough to choose sides.
In the end, she recalled me.The toxic ex.The bad decision. The one her subconscious apparently decided was worth keeping even when everything else got wiped clean.
Or maybe it was just divine timing—I was there when she woke up, the first familiar face in a sea of medical equipment and concerned strangers. Maybe her brain just latched onto whatever it could find and reconstructed our relationship from fragments and feelings rather than actual memories.
But now their paths have crossed unexpectedly, and she's kissed him in front of the world, announcing herself as his Omega. His and his pack's. Which means there's no way around this shit anymore. No more pretending we exist in separate spheres. No more careful distance maintained by unspoken agreements.
I can't reverse this.
The elevator slows, and I catch it immediately—Auren's scent filtering through the small gap where the doors will open. Vanilla and wildflowers, that underlying sweetness that makes my nerves calm just a fraction despite everything else. It's like a drug, the way her scent affects me, turning my aggression into something more manageable, more?—
Fuck.
There are other scents mixed with hers.
Sweat and sex and satisfaction, layered so thick I can practically taste what they did in this suite. My brother's scent all over her, marking her inside and out in ways that make my Alpha instincts roar with the need to reclaim, to cover his marks with my own, to?—
I bite my bottom lip harder to stop the growl building in my chest.
"Calm down," I tell myself, but my body isn't listening. Every muscle is tense, ready for a fight I know is coming.
The doors open, and I immediately lock eyes with my twin brother.
Lachlan.
One look at his face—that particular combination of annoyance and resignation that means he knew this was coming—and I'm groaning before I can stop myself.
"Why do you always come at the worst fucking time?"
He doesn't miss a beat, that infuriating smirk spreading across his face.
"I missed you too, my dear brother that the world now knows about."
The sarcasm drips from every word, but there's an edge underneath that speaks of genuine frustration.
That's when I realize he's not alone.
