Page 15 of Pack’s Pledge

I lifted the lid.

Inside the first, larger box, there was a small, black leather handbag, understated, but obviously expensive. I lifted it from the tissue paper, and a note fluttered out.

For the other night,it read.Thank you for being there. Beau and Adrian.

I huffed out a laugh.Like I’d done anything.

I moved onto the second box, opening it to reveal another note.

For tonight,this one read.Just in case. Beau and Adrian.

I peeled back the tissue paper.

If I hadn’t been sure of their interest already, I would have been sure now: a lacy lingerie set was nestled in the delicate wrapping, dark grey, with a small black bow between the cups. A coordinating pair of panties with a matching bow.

Warmth seeped from my flushed cheeks, down into my belly, between my legs.

I had known Conall better than anyone, eleven years ago.

What did it mean that the men who knew him best now had sent me…this?

CHAPTERTWELVE

Conall

Britt stepped downfrom the stoop of her apartment looking like a dream.

No, notadream.Mydream.Thedream.

She wore a simple dress–black, knee-length, one that looked like she probably wore it to everything from job interviews to funerals to weddings–but with her sleek hair flipped to one side and her eyes smudged with some kind of makeup, she was…

She was everything I’d ever dreamed of.

I stood up straight from where I had been leaning against the passenger seat of the car, fiddling nervously with my phone. I’d been checking work emails, supposedly, although I couldn’t tell you a single thing any one of them had said. I’d have to be sure to re-read them in the morning, at my desk.

“Britt,” I said, and then, “thank you.” Nice one, Conall.Thank you?“For meeting me, I mean.” I opened the door, scrunching my eyes shut as she dropped into the low seat of my coupe. We didn’t need the SUV tonight, not with only the two of us, and even though the Britt I’d known didn’t seem the type to be impressed by an expensive car, well, I knew I didn’t know her as well as I once had. I didn’t want to take any chances, showing up in any old beater. I closed her door, and took a deep breath as I rounded the car to the driver’s side.

Don’t fuck this up any more than you already have, Conall.

We made awkward small talk on the way to the restaurant.How were your shifts at the club? How is Beau after the run-in on Thursday?I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a mistake. The Britt I’d known had been bold, funny, never afraid to speak her mind, very unlike the quiet, almost timid, woman sitting next to me in the car that suddenly seemed too much, too ostentatious.

But then I remembered the fire in her eyes on Thursday as she stuck up for Beau, a man she’d barely met an hour before, and I had to smile. Under the awkward silences, she was the same Britt.

It was me that had changed. My stomach sank.

“Wow, this place is…” Britt breathed as I handed her up out of the low-slung car, gaping at the entrance to the restaurant: uniformed valet, doorman, tall glass door that shone with the soft golden light of chandeliers and candles.

Fuck. I had gone about this all wrong, but it was too late now. There was nothing to do but charge through it–just like I’d always done, just like Ihadto do.You’re an alpha,I reminded myself.Fucking act like it.

The maître d’ escorted us to one of the private booths around the perimeter of the dining room, and a waiter appeared almost instantly with a bottle of champagne, popping the cork and pouring us two glittering flutes of the pale, bubbling liquid.

Britt lifted her eyebrows as well as her glass, and I felt the back of my neck heat up with embarrassment.

“The food is really good,” I said, and she laughed softly.

“Sure,” she said, looking at her wine. She took another sip, the lip of the fine crystal pillowed against her lower lip. I shifted in my chair. “You were never much of a foodie, back in the day.”

“I’m not now, either,” I confessed, the corner of my lip picking up. “That would be Beau. This is his favorite, really, not mine.”