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Isaak jumps, smacking his head against his door and dropping his briefcase as he spins around to face me. “Magnolia.”

“I think Dr. Reynolds is fine after your behavior yesterday.” Might as well rip the bandaid off. We can’t be on the outs while we’re working together, and to be honest, I don’t like being on the outs with Isaak.

He’s awkward and rigid but he’s so sweet and after how he handled my panic attack, I’m even more attracted to that side of him.

That’s the side I want all the time but I’ll take the rigid and awkward, too.

Isaak’s brows slam down over his glasses, the man giving me the scowl to end all scowls. “ My behavior?” He kicks his briefcase toward the desk, marching behind it like a man on a mission. “ My behavior ?”

I park my hands on my hips, ready to go to war but he kicks his briefcase again and for some reason that’s irritating as hell.

“Yes, your behavior.” I stomp around the large hand carved hunk of wood and bend over, picking up his crap just so I can shove it at his chest when he stops in front of me. “You acted like a dog sniffing around a piece of roadkill, which makes me the roadkill.”

“Because you smelled awful,” Isaak grunts as he yanks his case from my hands and throws it at one of the wingbacks. “I don’t know what you did but there was definitely a foul odor following you around.”

My hands ball into fists at my sides and my eyes well with tears.

I don’t know why it bothers me so much that Isaak thinks that. It’s not like I wanted to smell like Camden, it’s not like I did it on purpose. Having him circling me like a buzzard yesterday then saying what he just did, it hurts.

It hurts like someone I love insulted me, and I don’t really know what to do with that.

It’s that feeling alone that fuels the next thing out of my mouth because it sure isn’t my brain when I look him in the eye and blurt, “I showered!”

Isaak recoils like I slapped him, his face turning red as he takes a deep breath.

“I know ,” he grits through clenched teeth. “I was here.”

Right.

I made a show of it in retaliation but it didn’t work, and it didn’t seem to make today any easier.

“This isn’t working.” I turn away so he doesn’t see the stupid tears that want to roll down my cheeks. “I thought we had reached a turning point in… Well, I just thought things were going to be different and now I can see they’re not.”

“Magnolia.”

I shake my head and try to keep myself calm as I walk back around the desk. “I can’t do this with you, I don’t have it in me. There’s too much going on, too much at risk and?—“

Suddenly, there’s a hand on my shoulder and I’m spinning around until I’m facing angry kaleidoscope eyes.

”I need you to shut up.”

”Excuse the fuck out of me?”

He stares at me for a moment, clearly thinking about what words he’s going to use but I see the second he decides he doesn’t actually give a shit about that.

”I need you to shut up and just listen, Magnolia.” I open my mouth to argue but this sexy nerd has the audacity to cover it with his hand. ”I’m not joking.”

I’m going to bite him.

I want to bite the shit out of Isaak Lowe for acting like an ass and confusing the hell out of me because I swear to god he just perfumed as soon as he touched me.

Maybe he’s close enough for me to scent him better.

That’s probably all it is.

He starts backing me toward his chair then stops when my legs bump into it. “Do you want to know why I thought you smelled horrible yesterday?”

I nod since he won’t let me speak.

“Because you smelled like someone else. You didn’t smell like Magnolia, and your scent reeked of another alpha.”

My brows furrow at his choice of words, another alpha a strange way to phrase it. Not like I can ask him what the hell he means since he’s still covering my mouth .

“Additionally,” Isaak says as he clearly steels his spine against whatever he’s about to lay on me. “You acted like a child throwing a tantrum when I pointed it out.”

I grab his wrist and yank his hand away. “Go to hell, Isaak. I’d had a shitty day already and I came in here to try to block it out. Instead, I had you acting like a fucking dog with a bone and I didn’t know how to handle that, either.”

Isaak closes the gap between us, putting us chest to chest as he looks down at me. “Do you know why I was acting like that? Or why I came in early this morning?”

Wow, he is definitely perfuming. I’m completely surrounded by his scent, the lilac so fragrant it's like they’re sitting in a vase a few feet away while the sugary sweet scent comes at me in gentle waves.

I don’t get it. He takes blockers like I do, uses scent dampening shit, too, but he is overpowering any other smell in this room right now and I’m a little concerned my body is going to start responding in solidarity.

“Do you?”

I shake my head as I start to breathe a little heavier.

”I acted like a fool because the thought of another alpha touching you, a different one scenting you intimately, it made me angry.

Angry and jealous as fuck.” He runs his tongue along the seam of his lips, his eyes dropping to mine briefly.

“And I came in early this morning because I was going to go sit in that bathroom and touch myself to the thought of you showering in there, to the image of your nearly naked body walking through the door. I was going to jerk off until I came, probably more than once, while I was surrounded by our scents, bathed in how they tangled together in the most divine way.”

Yeah, my body responded.

All the parts. My mouth is dry, my chest is pumping like crazy, my stomach is full of butterflies. My pussy clenched around nothing. I can’t smell it but I know I perfumed, there’s no way I didn’t with all the slick pooling in my panties.

”All of that is a problem, Magnolia.”

I blink repeatedly and frown. “Why?”

He smiles, the genuine one I rarely get to see, and lifts a hand to my cheek. “Because I can’t have you.”

“But—“

“I’m older, for starters. You don’t need that.”

“Thirty-eight is hardly ancient, Isaak, and eleven years means shit in this day and age.”

He brushes my hair out of my face and lifts his other hand to trace my jaw. “I’m your professor.”

”No,” I shake my head emphatically. “Donovan said it himself, we aren’t teacher and student, not really. I’m learning from your experience in a clinical setting the same way new doctors do at the hospital. It’s not the same.”

“That’s a stretch, and it would still make us colleagues.”

“Also not an issue.” I lean into his touch and grab the front of his sweater vest. “There’s nothing in any of the handbooks saying it’s forbidden for doctors or nurses to date or have non-platonic relationships.

Both jackasses who run the other two buildings would be the biggest hypocrites if they made that a policy considering how well they know a lot of people that work for them. ”

“Then there’s the little matter of your father.” I scowl as Isaak sighs but the smile never leaves his face. “Magnolia. I don’t know if mixing business with pleasure would work for us, not after the way I’ve reacted to you.”

”I don’t care.”

“But I do.” He dips his chin, his lips so close to mine. “I care too much about the things I shouldn’t, and not enough about the things I should.”

Isaak brushes his lips against mine, a gentle caress that has me fisting the front of his vest like my life depends on it. More. I need more from him. I need everything he’s willing to give me but I’m afraid that isn’t going to be what we both clearly want.

Proven when Isaak lets go of me and backs up, turning away with a grunt as he digs his fingers in his hair. “It’s not right.”

“Fine,” I snap, frustration filling my voice.

“Fine, you win. I’ll pretend like I don’t have feelings for you and act like I never have.

” I drop down into his chair and open my laptop, powering it on to get ready for the FaceTime from hell.

“What’s worse than getting my hopes up is that you turned into a goddamn tease while you did it.

That’s bullshit, Isaak. You want to make excuses to keep us from being together?

Cool. I won’t be held responsible for my behavior moving forward, no fucking?—“

“You are infuriating.” Isaak comes at me again, I can see it out of my peripheral vision seconds before he grabs the arms of his chair and turns me to face him.

“Infuriating and stubborn.” He searches my eyes for a moment as he leans in close.

“You’re so goddamn perfect it drives me crazy.

And it doesn't make a bit of sense to me as to why you’d want me in any way let alone the one you’re talking about. ”

Instead of saying anything, instead of arguing with him again, I sit up and grab the sides of his neck, pull him toward me and kiss him with everything I’ve got.

He tastes like candied pecans.

Sweet and a little savory.

The flavor is so strong against my lips that I instinctively push my tongue inside, exploring every bit of his mouth while his flavor explodes against my taste buds.

That’s when it happens.

A buzzing in my veins, a low humming in my ear.

My heart beats a little faster and I can’t help but think I shouldn’t feel anything but guilt for kissing Isaak.

I’m mated, bonded to two men I love.

Korvin and Des flash through my mind, a jolt of anxiety slicing through my chest for a brief moment but it doesn’t last. It doesn’t last because it’s almost as if I can hear them telling me that this is supposed to happen, that this is how it’s supposed to be.

I can almost feel things clicking into place because this is what they meant last night when they said all of us .

I don’t feel guilty because I’m not supposed to. Instead, I feel a little more whole, like another piece of my heart fell into place.

Isaak is ours, and my alphas already know.

It would have been nice if they told me but somehow I’m not surprised that they didn’t. Desmond probably made Vin promise not to just for the fun of it.