Page 26 of Knot Their Safe Haven (The Omega Rebellion Movement #3)

"I've never been invited on a date." Her voice catches slightly.

"The fact you set this up, that you waited all day for me to wake, to give me a moment of normalcy in this chaos.

.." Her eyes go glassy with unshed tears.

"It means more than I can express to an Alpha who's given me the best ultimatum I could ask for. "

She cups my face with hands that smell of expensive lotion and her, only her.

"Merci, mon beau sauveur."

Thank you, my beautiful savior.

The endearment in French, the acknowledgment of what I've done, what I'm trying to do—it nearly breaks my control entirely.

I press my lips to her forehead, breathing her in, memorizing this moment when everything finally starts.

"From this moment forward," I whisper against her skin, "let us show you what true courting is. A pack that never wishes for you to hide. That celebrates every silver hair, every battle scar, every year that made you who you are."

I pull back, offering my arm.

"Shall we? The chef has prepared seven courses, each paired with wines from years that mattered. The year you opened the Haven. The year you saved your hundredth omega. The year you told Knox you loved him, even if he was too much of a coward to reciprocate properly."

Her eyes widen.

"How do you?—"

"I've been watching, remember? Seventeen years of careful observation. I know your history, your victories, your defeats. And now," I guide her to her chair, pulling it out with practiced ease, "I want to know your future."

She settles into the seat like a queen taking her throne, my jacket dwarfing her frame but somehow making her look more powerful, not less.

"The first course is oysters from Prince Edward Island." I take my own seat, noting how her eyes track my movements. "Harvested this morning, flown here directly. The wine is a Sancerre from 2019—the year the movement began that would eventually lead to your freedom."

The waiter appears —one of the cottage's discrete staff— placing plates with architectural precision. The oysters rest on crushed ice, garnished with champagne foam and caviar, beautiful enough to photograph but destined for destruction.

"This is too much," she protests, but her smile says otherwise.

"This is exactly enough. You've been surviving on hospital food and wine stolen between crises. Your body needs protein, minerals, celebration." I raise my glass. "To first dates that should have happened seventeen years ago."

She raises her own, crystal singing as our glasses meet.

"To patient Alphas who know how to make an entrance."

We drink, and I watch her throat work, watch the way candlelight plays across her skin, watch her exist in space I've created specifically for her pleasure.

"Tell me," she says, selecting an oyster with the confidence of someone who's attended a thousand formal dinners, "what happens after dinner? After these seven courses and carefully selected wines?"

"We talk. Or don't talk. We sit by the fire I'll build despite having three fireplaces inside. We discuss the pack, the Haven, the future, or we discuss nothing and just exist in the same space without conditions or expectations."

"And tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow Alexis arrives, probably with enough luggage to outfit an army. The twins follow the day after. Then you meet your pack properly, not as a medical emergency but as the woman we've chosen."

"Chosen." She tastes the word like wine. "Not claimed. Not taken. Chosen."

"And choosing in return. Every day, every moment, choosing to stay or choosing to leave. The papers are legal fiction. Everything real requires continuous consent."

She sets down her oyster fork, studying me over those sexy librarian glasses.

"You know what you smell like to me?"

The question catches me off-guard.

"Tell me."

"Like leather libraries and expensive whiskey. Like thunderstorms over the ocean. Like power that doesn't need to announce itself." She inhales deeply, and her pupils dilate. "Like the promise of very bad decisions that feel incredibly right."

"Is that what this is? A bad decision?"

"The worst." But she's smiling, that crimson mouth curved in invitation. "Dating someone five years younger. Accepting a pack I barely know. Trusting strangers with my life's work. Absolutely terrible decisions."

"And yet?"

"And yet here I am, in a dress that costs more than most cars, having dinner with a billionaire who apparently orchestrated a seventeen-year campaign to win me, while my entire world burns down and rebuilds simultaneously."

"When you put it like that, it does sound insane."

"Sanity was never my strong suit." She selects another oyster, and I absolutely do not watch her mouth as she savors it. "Tell me about Alexis."

"What about her?"

"A female Alpha. That's rarer than male Omegas. How does she manage it?"

"By being absolutely fucking terrifying when necessary.

" I pour more wine, noting how she unconsciously leans toward me, drawn by our matched scents.

"In public, she's Alexander Rosenberg, venture capitalist and professional ball-buster.

In private, she's Alexis, who insists on painting everyone's nails while planning corporate takeovers. "

"And the twins?"

"Dante and Damon Corleone, yes, like the movie, yes, they find it hilarious. They share everything—clothes, cars, occasionally partners who can handle both. They're also the reason three would-be infiltrators are currently reconsidering their life choices."

"They sound..."

"Intense? Overwhelming? Slightly unhinged?"

"Perfect." She says it simply, honestly. "A pack of misfits for the misfit omega."

"You're not a misfit."

"I'm nearly forty, unclaimed, difficult, set in my ways?—"

"You're experienced, independent, brilliant, and know exactly what you want.

" I lean forward, close enough that our scents mingle.

"Do you know what that's worth to Alphas who've spent their lives surrounded by people who pretend?

Who submit because society says they should, not because they choose to? "

The waiter returns, clearing plates and placing the second course—seared foie gras with blood orange reduction, paired with a Tokaji from 2007.

"The year I opened the Haven," she recognizes, eyes softening.

"The year you stopped running from your nature and started protecting others who couldn't protect themselves."

We eat in comfortable silence, the food disappearing as the sun finally gives up its fight with night. The candles become our primary light, turning the table into an island of warmth while the world darkens around us.

"I could get used to this," she admits quietly, surprising us both.

"That's the idea."

"Being courted and treated like I matter beyond my ability to organize revolutions."

"You matter in every way imaginable. Your revolution was just the most public expression of your worth."

She sets down her fork, those dark eyes studying me with an intensity that should be illegal.

"When did you know? That we were scent matched?"

"About thirty seconds before you did. Though in hindsight, it explains everything. Why I could never completely move on. Why every other omega smelled wrong. Why I waited seventeen years when any sane man would have given up."

"Guess fate truly enjoys making our choices for us."

"Confirming what choice already knew." I reach across the table, not quite touching but close enough that she could accept or reject the gesture.

"I chose you at eighteen, before I understood what scent matches meant.

The fact that we're matched just means the universe finally got its shit together. "

She slides her hand forward, fingers barely brushing mine.

The contact is electric, sending want racing through every nerve.

"This is dangerous," she whispers.

"The best things always are."

The third course arrives—duck confit with cherry reduction, paired with a Pinot Noir from 2011.

"The year Icarus graduated university," I provide before she can ask.

Her eyes widen.

"You know about?—"

"Your son? Of course. Did you think I spent seventeen years not investigating the woman who consumed my thoughts? I know about the midnight feedings you did alone. The school plays Knox attended separately. The graduation where you sat three rows apart and pretended not to know each other."

"That's... invasive."

"That's thorough. Know your enemy, know yourself, win a thousand battles."

"Am I your enemy?"

"You're my everything. Which made you the most dangerous enemy I could have—the one who could destroy me without trying."

She picks up her wine, inhaling its bouquet before sipping. The way her throat moves, those lips of hers leaving the faintest mark on crystal—everything she does is unconscious seduction.

"Your parents know about this?"

"My father knows I've claimed someone significant. My mother is dead, so her opinion is limited."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. She died when I was twelve. Cancer. Quick and brutal and nothing money could fix."

"Is that why?—"

"Why I went into biotech? Partially. Also because it's lucrative, innovative, and pisses off old money who think technology is beneath them."

"Rebellious even in your capitalism."

"Learned from the best rebel I know."

The courses continue— lobster thermidor, wagyu beef, truffle risotto —each paired with wines that mark moments in her history.

We talk about everything and nothing. The twins' grandfather who built his fortune on "import/export" which everyone knew meant smuggling.

Alexis's transition from trying to be the perfect “son” to embracing her identity as a female Alpha.

My own journey from love-sick teenager to man who could actually stand at her side.

By the time dessert arrives— dark chocolate soufflé with gold leaf, because I have no shame about clichés —we're both slightly drunk on wine and proximity.

"I should hate you," she says, but she's smiling. "For watching, waiting, and swooping in when I was vulnerable."

"Do you?"

"No. I should, but I don't." She licks chocolate from her spoon, and I have to close my eyes briefly. "I'm grateful. Furious that it took nearly dying, but grateful."

"Gratitude's a start."

"What are you hoping for as an ending?"

I stand, moving around the table to offer her my hand.

"Come. I'll show you."

She accepts, rising with inherited grace despite the wine, despite the heels, despite everything.

I guide her to the deck's edge where the valley spreads below us, lights from the town twinkling like earthbound stars.

"What am I looking at?"

"The future. Where you wake every morning to this view. Where you run your expanded Haven from the office we'll build. Where you finally stop fighting alone because you have a pack that would burn the world before letting it hurt you again."

She turns in my arms— when did I wrap them around her —looking up at me with eyes that hold universes.

"That's a big promise."

"I'm good at keeping those."

We stand there, her back pressed to my chest, my jacket still draped over her shoulders, our scents mingling in the night air until I can't tell where I end and she begins.

"The first course of many," I murmur against her hair.

She laughs, soft and content.

"Seven courses weren't enough?"

"Not nearly. I plan to feed you every delicacy, show you every wonder, give you every experience you missed while waiting for men too frightened to choose you properly."

"And if I'm too difficult, old, or set in my ways?"

"Then be difficult. Be whatever age you are. Be so set in your ways that I have to learn every one." I turn her to face me, hands framing her face. "Be exactly who you are, because that's who I waited for."

Her smile could power cities, fuel dreams, start wars.

"Shall we order another bottle?"

"We shall order whatever you want. Tonight, tomorrow, forever."

"Forever's a long time."

"Not nearly long enough."

She stretches up, and I meet her halfway, our lips meeting in a kiss that tastes like chocolate and wine and seventeen years of patience finally rewarded.

When we break apart, we're both breathing hard, our scents so intertwined that we smell like one creature instead of two.

"Inside," she manages. "Before your female Alpha reviews the footage and comes to kick your ass for misbehaving."

"Technically, you kissed me."

"Technicalities won't save you from her wrath."

That has us chuckling in agreement.

We move toward the doors, hands linked, steps synchronized.

"Thank you," she says suddenly. "For this. For dinner. For—" She gestures at everything. "For making me feel like I'm worth the effort."

"You're worth everything."

We reach the door, and she pauses, looking back at the table with its candles still burning, at the night sky now brilliant with stars, at the life waiting to begin.

"One more thing."

"Anything."

"When Alexis gets here? I want to learn how she does it. How she exists as a female Alpha without apology."

"She'll love that. She's been dying for another woman in the pack. Says we have too much testosterone and not enough fashion sense."

"Well, she's not wrong about the fashion. Those twins dress like they're auditioning for a mob movie."

"That's actually intentional."

"Of course it is."

We enter the cottage laughing, our joined scents filling the space with the perfume of compatibility, of possibility, of plates being cleared and new courses being prepared.

The first date ends, but everything else?

Everything else is just beginning.