Page 23 of The Alpha's Triplets

Luckily, he caught himself just before he blurted it out. Instead, he said, “Go ahead and get some sleep. For now, we’ll be sleeping in separate bedrooms. Mine is just down the hallway from yours, third door on your right.

“When we have to host dinners or events here, we’ll have to move our things around to prevent suspicion. I don’t think anyone will care too much about our sleeping arrangements, but I’d prefer if we didn’t take any chances.”

Eleanor spun around as he spoke, and Blake thought he saw something flash across her face. He thought it looked like disappointment, but the expression was gone as soon as it had come, and there was no way for him to be sure of what he had seen.

Eleanor’s face was a porcelain mask when she said, “Sure. Sounds like a great idea.”

“Great. Get some rest. Tomorrow, we can go over our strategy for the coming period. There’s time enough to figure out the details of our plan in the morning. But for now, you should get some sleep.”

“I will,” Eleanor said with a blank expression, her tone heavy with finality.

Blake lingered a little longer, hoping for her to say something, anything that would encourage him. He loved his bedroom, for starters. Even more, the thought of spending the night alone, knowing that she was just a few doors away, seemed horribly painful for him to imagine.

She said nothing, though. It was clear to him that the conversation was over, and so was any chance of spending the night with Eleanor. He accepted the fact grudgingly and walked toward the door. He turned around at the door and said, “Good night. Sleep well.”

“You too.” Eleanor remained glued to the same spot, watching him. He nodded, glanced at the bed once more, and then shut the door behind him.

He stood outside the room, closed his eyes, and listened. He heard Eleanor sigh deeply before she sat lightly on the bed. He heard the bed creak softly when she lay in it, and he heard her sigh again.

He had no idea why he waited, or what he was waiting for, but he couldn’t think of anywhere else he wanted to be. Everything fell silent around him, and he strained his ears to hear her breathing. It sounded faint, but it was loud enough for him to pick up the slow, rhythmic sounds.

After several minutes of listening to her breathe, he realized just how creepy he would seem if she stepped out of her bedroom and found him standing there. Having nothing better to do, he made his way down to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee.

His mind was completely blank as he sipped quietly from his mug, enjoying the warmth that spread through his chest and stomach. He was used to his house being silent at night, and usually he enjoyed the quiet. Tonight, though, it unnerved him.

He drained the mug, refilled it, and took his coffee to his game room. He turned on the console with the controller and settled into the sofa, balancing the mug on its arm.

It took only ten minutes for him to come to the conclusion that playing video games was the last thing he wanted to do tonight. The clock on the screen showed that the night was still really young, but he decided to call it a day anyway.

He returned to the kitchen, washed his mug, and then went upstairs to his new bedroom. He stood in the hallway outside his door and watched Eleanor’s door longingly.What are you doing?he scolded himself before stepping into his room.

He looked around the room. It was much smaller than the master bedroom, but bigger than most of the other rooms in the house.

Blake felt a little embarrassed that he hadn’t planned sleeping arrangements for himself and Eleanor earlier. Of all the things he had prepared for in the days leading up to the wedding, he had somehow managed to miss the most important.

It was only as wild thoughts crept into his mind as he’d longed to share his bed with Eleanor that he’d realized the gravity of his error. He didn’t want to imagine what her reaction would have been if he’d tried to get into bed behind her.

A part of him thought she might be fine with it. Heck, she might have even wanted him to stay. But the price of such a miscalculation would be steep. Not only was she his sister’s friend, but both Blake and Xander had insisted that they were to be married only on paper.

What would she have thought of him if he had reneged on that arrangement by trying to share the same bed with her? He didn’t want to imagine how that would have played out. He’d decided that they should sleep in separate rooms on a whim, but the more he thought about it, the wiser that decision to walk away became.

The room he was to sleep in now was his old room, from when he was a much younger man. When his parents had still lived here. After Blake became alpha, they’d decided to move into their second home deeper in the forest.

“Away from the noise and stress of leading a pack,” his father had said. “I’m an old wolf. I find that I don’t have the same enthusiasm I once did when I was younger and stronger.”

So Blake had gone ahead to renovate the whole house, making it more modern. He was proud of what he had done. The house was an architectural beauty, and more and more wolves in Rhinestone were developing their houses to look the same way.

He hadn’t been in his childhood bedroom in years, and he braved the nostalgia that swept through him as he looked around. The closet was full of clothes and shoes that didn’t fit anymore, he was sure.

He’d gone through a thorough physical change in the last few years, and he was sometimes surprised when he saw his own reflection. The man who looked back at him was a stranger from the man he had once been.

He was older, stronger, bigger, wiser. And if he looked closely, he could see some strands of gray mixed in with his thick auburn hair.

The housekeeper kept the room spotless at all times, just as she did with every other room in the house. Besides that, everything else seemed unchanged, as if time had stood still in this very room.

Blake sat on the bed and ran his hand over the fabric of the sheets. His mind wandered to Eleanor, probably deeply asleep, just three doors down in his bedroom. It was frustrating that he kept thinking about her, even when he didn’t intend to. He had no idea how she managed to enter his thoughts as easily as she did, and he didn’t know why.

He barely knew anything about her, except for what he’d learned from the few times Xander brought her up. Even then, he barely lingered on the topic, and Blake had learned that any questions he had about Eleanor would likely go unanswered.

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