Page 19 of Isla

We didn't install cameras in the bathroom. The law would have come down hard on the hotel if we tried that. So Harrison and I watched as the steam flowed into the bedroom as we waited.

The sound of the door to her hotel room chinked as the door clicked back into the lock.

Using my keyboard to move to the camera located in the living area as Isla’s food was pushed on a trolley into the room. Room service made the table and placed two plates of food on the table.

Harrison quickly picked up his cell. “Bryn, Mr Weston here. Can you bring a bottle of eighteen-twenty-four Macallan to my suite?”

“Now?” Bryn asked, looking around the room and strolling to the bedroom door.

“Yes,” Harrison barked.

“Of course, Mr Weston.” Bryn turned and strode to the main hotel door, glancing back once more and sighed.

A few minutes later, Isla strode into the living area, her small body wrapped in the large fluffy gown that touched her feet. She wrapped her hair in a white towel. Before she sauntered to the table, stared at the food, and quickly glanced around the room. Probably wondering how someone was inside without her knowing. Slowly, she picked up the card. it was a standard complimentary card to go with the free food, a service which we normally reserved for high spending casino patrons.

She pulled out a chair and smiled as she sat at the table. Her gaze roaming over the food as she lifted her fork and dug deep into the cookie cake, then raised the sweet dessert to her nose and inhaling the cocoa smell. Harrison and I both smiled as she finally took the mouthful of food and sighed, her head dropping back as she closed her eyes.

But then her shoulders dropped. Her fork did too as she stared at the food on the table and didn’t move for ages until her hand raised to her face and she swept away a tear.

“Ah fuck, we’ve made it worse,” I said.

She took the dessert plate and sat in the enormous bed, dragged the comforter over her legs, still crying as she ate her cookie pie.

“I need to see her,” Harrison said, as he went to rise from his seat beside me.

I pressed my fingers around his wrist, holding tight. “No, leave her. She’ll suspect cameras if you suddenly end up in her room. She needs to cry off her past and we’ll be ready tomorrow.”

A cell phone rang, and we turned back to the screen as Isla sighed and picked it up, swiping the screen.

“Hello,” she said, her voice weaker than when she spoke to me. Her eyes raised to the ceiling as she sighed.

“I’m not marrying you. I don’t care that I’ve ruined your life because you gave no consideration to mine.”

She placed the cookie pie on the bedside table, shaking her head, listening to his rants. Before she swiped her finger across her cell, hanging up and placing it face down on the bed. She stared straight ahead as silent tears rolled down her face and then she pushed herself under the comforter and sobbed.

“Leave her,” I warned Harrison, noticing his inner alpha’s need to comfort her had kicked in, but this time he was going to have to take a step back.

Harrison huffed as he walked away and I stared at Isla, sobbing with her body curled up inside the comforter. And seeing her cry did something different to me. My dick was aching behind my trousers. Seeing her so desperate, so sad, so different from how she was with me.

“What the fuck,” I growled. A pit of guilt in my stomach replaced my arousal. Isla didn’t need a man like me in her life. I stood up and prowled around the apartment, glancing at her and out to the strip and back again. Before I headed to my bathroom to cool myself off with a cold shower.

Isla needed someone good in her life. Harrison was a good man, a good alpha, but we came as a pack. She needed to be pushed in a different direction. I had a sense I had to push Harrison the opposite way.

The shower was cool when I stepped inside and held my hands flat against the slippery tiles. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, thinking, but it was enough time to know I was lying to myself.

Just remembering her sweet voice in my head, the way she glared as she told me about her ex.

I inhaled, knowing I wasn’t an alpha who would be good for her, but regardless, I also knew giving her up wasn’t something I was going to do easily either.

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