Page 44

Knox exhales softly, the sound almost lost beneath the hum of the kitchen.

He busies himself with the cups, gaze fixed on the polished surface of the table, refusing to meet my eyes.

The silence stretches, heavy and uncertain, as he skirts around my question—his answer withheld, hidden somewhere behind the furrow of his brow and the careful, deliberate motions of his hands.

I watch him, my gaze tracing the lines of his tense shoulders and the way his hands linger just a moment too long over the cups. My curiosity sharpens, searching his profile for clues, but he offers nothing—just that tight set to his jaw, a storm of thoughts flickering behind his downcast eyes.

I want to slip inside his mind, untangle the web of regret and hope I sense beneath the surface. The air between us is thick with everything unsaid, and as the seconds drag on, my anticipation only grows, balanced somewhere between hope and uncertainty.

“We’ll talk after dinner,” is all he says as he finishes setting the places for everyone to eat.

Knox takes his place at the head of the table. I wish I could say I hate seeing him there, but I don’t. Not even close. Something locks in place when I see him sitting there, regal and untouchable, as he takes the lasagna and dishes some out onto my plate.

Silence is our friend as we take our servings.

Silence is our friend as we eat without communicating.

It’s an easy silence that doesn’t rub me the wrong way. Sitting here with the guys feels like it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be. There’s no need to make small talk. We all remain in silence, allowing the companionship of each other’s presence to fill the void of laughter and conversation.

The moment I put the first bite of lasagna in my mouth, I nearly release a moan of satisfaction.

I give a little jig in my seat, loving the taste that explodes on my taste buds.

I spy a smirk at the corner of Knox’s lips, but he doesn’t call me out on my reaction to their cooking.

Instead, I startle when I feel a hand slip onto the top of my knee and give it a tiny squeeze.

It’s Knox’s way of telling me he knows I love their cooking, and he’s pleased with my reaction.

Soon, our plates are clean. However, I’m too full to eat a second serving.

The guys, however, are not. They devour the food in front of us with gusto, like they haven’t eaten anything in years.

It isn’t until Tripp gets up, goes to the island, and carries back a triple chocolate cake that my sweet tooth roars to life.

I can’t help myself. Before Tripp even sets the cake down fully, I’m already leaning forward, fingers twitching in anticipation as the rich, fudgy aroma fills the room.

My mouth waters shamelessly; restraint never stood a chance.

I make a swift, almost reckless grab for the first slice, my fork poised like a diver ready to plunge.

There’s a chorus of mock protests and laughter from the others, but all I can think about is the glossy, decadent chocolate waiting to melt on my tongue.

The first bite is pure bliss—sweet, dense, and utterly worth my impatience.

“I take it you approve,” Knox states, a satisfied smile tugging at his lips. He looks at me with something akin to pride shining in his gunmetal eyes.

Forgetting myself, I release a squeal of happiness, even as my mouth is full of chocolate, fudgy wonder.

I nod hurriedly and reach for another bite.

But before I can get it, Knox softly bats my hand away.

I go to protest, watching as he forks a bite.

But before I can, he holds it out in front of me expectantly.

My eyes meet his, seeing an expectancy in his gaze.

His eyes drop to my lips before making their way back to mine.

He swallows hard as I lean forward, slowly flicking out my tongue against the tines of the fork, bringing the bite into my mouth.

I watch as his Adam’s apple flicks up and down.

His eyes take on a heated, droopy look of arousal as he watches me enjoy the bite he fed me.

I shouldn’t be allowing this. In fact, I shouldn’t have allowed them inside my home, not after what they did to me. Right now, though, the reasons for not letting them close to me don’t matter.

Nothing does.

All that matters is the here and now. The rest I can worry about after I eat my delicious cake.

Between each bite, I catch the faintest noises—Tripp’s low hum of envy, Boone’s barely contained groan of appreciation—but I choose to drown them out.

This moment belongs to Knox, even though it shouldn’t, to the unspoken conversation of touch and taste.

I close my eyes and focus on the warmth of his hand as it nears my face, steadying the fork, the sweet rush of cake, the fluttering in my chest. The rest fades away: the laughter, the teasing, the muffled sighs from the others.

An intimate dinner like this spells trouble.

There was a small part in the back of my mind that wished for this, though.

When I received the flowers from Knox, I didn’t want to be the one to drop everything and come running.

When Knox hurt me with his words and Tripp with his actions that night, I vowed that I wouldn’t let anyone run over me anymore. I still vow that to myself.

Growing up the way I did, I constantly had people trying to tear me down. It worked for the most part. I allowed them to get into my head, and I constantly felt like I didn’t measure up to people’s expectations of me.

Then, one day, it clicked. It hit me so hard that I had the meltdown of all meltdowns in front of these guys. I stood in front of them and called them out on their shit, daring them to say a word as I went off the deep end.

Who cares about people’s expectations of me? As long as I love myself and I allow no one to interfere with that happiness, that is enough.

I am enough.

If people can’t see that, then fuck them. I don’t have to impress anyone. I don’t even have to impress myself. As long as I’m okay in my skin and with my actions, I’m going to be okay.

“So, what are you all really doing here?” I ask, sitting back in my chair as I swallow my last bite of triple chocolate cake.

Knox must know that he’s run out of time. He places the fork on the table and sits back in his chair, mirroring me. The other two remain silent, allowing their First Alpha to lead the conversation.

An amicable conversation.

I hate that word so much.

Amicable.

It’s the same word Knox used that first night when he told me he wanted me to tell Select-A-Mate that we amicably split ways and need to be rematched.

Now that I’ve done what he asked of me, they’re here sniffing around, wanting god only knows what.

Knox stares at me for a while in silence, just sits back and studies me with this stoic expression on his face. He doesn’t allow me to see anything of what he’s feeling inside. He’s the master of holding in his emotions, I gather, and probably made it extremely hard raising him when he was younger.

Clearing his throat, he speaks, “As I said at the coffee shop, we’re going to prove to you that we can be what you need.”

“You all were all I needed, but then you hurt me.”

“I will hate myself for that every single day for the rest of my life, little omega. There’s nothing I want more in this world than to take back what we … I did to you.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Knox’s gaze flickers away from me, shifting to Tripp and then to Boone, as if searching their faces for silent reassurance or perhaps strength he can borrow.

The room stretches taut with anticipation in that brief, wordless exchange.

Boone meets Knox’s steady look, jaw set, then gives a slight, nearly imperceptible nod—permission and encouragement entwined in the gesture, as though he’s granting Knox the space to finally speak the truth they’ve all been holding back.

“I didn’t want you to change. Well, to be changed. I want you to stay just as you are—innocent, happy, nice. I didn’t want to be the cause of you growing to hate us.”

I shift forward. “While that does tell me something, it doesn’t necessarily tell me the why.”

Knox lets out a slow breath, his shoulders sagging beneath the weight of everything left unsaid.

He drags his hands down his face—a gesture heavy with fatigue and frustration—then props his elbows on the edge of the table, fingers steepled together as if steadying himself for the words he’s about to find.

For a moment, he simply sits like that, chin resting on entwined knuckles, caught between confession and self-preservation.

“My world … it changes people. It chews them up and spits them out because they’re not prepared for it. You have to have tough skin with no weaknesses to show them.”

“You … think I’m a weakness?” It comes out as a question instead of a statement.

He growls. “I’m fucking this all up. No, I don’t think you’re a weakness.”

“No, you just think I’m weak.” I start to stand up from the table, but he latches onto my wrist to stop me from leaving. I jerk my arm, trying to break his hold, but his hold is too strong. “Let me go.”

“Just listen. Please,” he replies, exhaling.

“You are not a weakness.” He puts extra emphasis on his words. “You are not a liability. You are not unworthy. If anyone is unworthy, it’s us. We don’t deserve someone like you, but we’re asking for it all the same.”

“Just tell me why?”

“I don’t want my world to change you. I don’t want to see the light dim from your eyes because you have to wear a mask around people. I don’t want you to lose yourself.”

“And you think by being with you all, maneuvering through your world, that I’ll lose myself.”

“I—I didn’t know if you’d have the strength to stay exactly as you are, unfiltered and unrestrained.”

“Again,” I say. “You think I’m weak.”

Boone pushes back his chair, the legs scraping quietly against the floor. He stands, tension flickering over his features, then circles the table with deliberate steps. Without hesitation, he lowers himself into the chair beside me—close, closer than before.

His hand reaches for mine, fingers warm and steady as they find my own, his touch both grounding and gentle. Boone’s presence at my side fills the small space with a new intensity, the air between us shifting, charged with words yet unspoken.

“That’s not what he’s saying at all,” Boone says, forcing me to look at him and not turn my gaze away.

“What he’s trying to say is that he doesn’t want anyone to force you to change who you are, that you’re perfect just the way you are.

He doesn’t want you to be uncomfortable with any part of his life.

There will be times you need to escort him to a party or a charity event.

There are times you’ll need to stand beside him, dressed to the nines, and have the same stoic expression he keeps on his face.

People will talk. People will try to pick apart your very essence, making it hard for you to even look yourself in the mirror.

He wants you to remain wholesome, loving, innocent, and unbothered. He doesn’t want you to turn into him.”

“Hey!”

Boone turns his eyes toward Knox, scolding him with a look. “You know I’m right.”

Knox huffs and crosses his arms. “Yeah, but you didn’t have to say it like that.”

“I’m a straight shooter. I always have been. I want Remi to know exactly where your thoughts were at.”

“So, he pushed me away to save me,” I whisper the words, thinking about the times they didn’t show up, or wanted me to be rematched, or the night Tripp and I slept together.

“Essentially, yes,” Tripp butts in. “Knox was thinking about you and what he could do to get you to not want to mate with us.”

Taking my hand out of Boone’s, I shift around in my seat until I’m standing. They all look up at me, wearing different expressions on their face. Knox looks hopeful. Tripp looks expectant. Boone’s soft eyes and hands beg me to understand.

But I don’t. I don’t think I ever will.

“So, instead of giving me a chance to prove myself, you took one look at me and decided for yourselves that I wasn’t enough … Strike that, that I wouldn’t be strong enough to shmooze with your preppy little colleagues.”

“No, that’s not what …”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying. And you know what? You should’ve given me the benefit of the doubt because I’m about to show you just how strong of a person I can be. I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“But, Remi—” Knox goes to say, but I shut him up with a glare.

“Thank you for dinner, guys. It was lovely. But I’d like to be alone right now if you wouldn’t mind.”

The fact that Knox didn’t believe I could survive in his crowd cuts me to the core.

It’s a wound that doesn’t bleed—a quiet ache that seeps into the hollow spaces of my heart.

To hear, in words and in the tense silence between them, that they never thought I was strong enough, not for his world, not for the people he called his own.

It’s as if he held up a mirror and insisted I stare only at my cracks, denying every shimmer of resilience I’ve fought to forge.

The pain is not just about their lack of faith in me.

It’s the heavy realization that Knox never even let me try.

I built invisible walls, thick and high, meant to protect me, but in truth, they only hemmed me in, made me feel small, incapable, untested.

The chance to prove myself—to show that my spirit could weather storms, that my laughter could ring out even in the coldest halls—was stolen before it ever existed.

There is a loneliness in being underestimated, a piercing chill that presses against my ribs.

It whispers that I am ‘less than,’ that I will always be measured and found wanting by those who matter most to me.

And though I know my worth, though I burn with the need to prove it, my doubt lingers—a bruise beneath the surface, a silent echo of the words.

So yes, I hurt. I ache for all the times they looked at me and saw fragility where there was strength, for every moment they decided I couldn’t belong in their world.

The hurt is a quiet companion now, but it’s also a spark—one that will light the way as I show them, and myself, just how mighty I can be.