Page 36 of Sold to the Silver Foxes (Forbidden Hearts #6)

DANTE

Snow fell all night, and the morning sun bounces off a white lawn so bright it feels like studio lights outside the kitchen’s picture windows.

Carla set the hearth-style table with old majolica bowls and maple-handled spoons, and the oatmeal inside each bowl steams like Vesuvius’ vents. It should look homey, cozy even.

Instead, the scene buzzes with the same low-grade static that’s been humming in my skull. White noise called The Contract Ends Soon .

Tabitha pads in last, Sal’s enormous flannel shirt reaching mid-thigh, bare feet quiet on the limestone.

Her braid is fuzzy, but her face is scrubbed clean.

She looks like the softer, sleepier sister of the woman who wrangled nurses yesterday, and I feel the first throb of panic that I might lose mornings exactly like this.

I can’t let that happen.

She sits, murmurs good morning, and immediately launches into rehab stats she pulled from the patient portal at six- something.

“Erin’s protocol calls for daily weight-bearing practice starting soon, then three PT blocks a week.

Hydrotherapy in week three if her incisions seal, occupational therapy for grip strength, follow-up MRI at six weeks, which sounds far too far away for my liking.

I’d have her in the MRI every day if I could.

She’ll still be in a brace potentially until February?—”

Sal nods and writes bullet points in a leather notebook he’s repurposed from board-meeting doodles. Nico slides his phone across the table, calendar app open, and drags colored blocks into new positions with surgical precision. The two of them form an instant committee.

And I’m just here.

I’m across from Tabitha, but the words coming out of her mouth dissolve into hash.

Instead, I watch her forehead crease. I watch her swirl oatmeal without eating it.

The contract’s sub-paragraph about exclusive companionship for thirty days scrolls like neon in my peripheral vision.

Thirty days is coming to a close. Every detail about Erin’s therapy glows bright on Nico’s screen, but nothing’s penciled in for Tabitha after the contract.

Sal asks, “Will she need adaptive utensils past phase two?”

Tabitha shakes her head. “The therapist thinks she’ll ditch the brace within eight weeks, if we keep her honest on the homework.”

Nico asks, “Transportation frequency? We can set a standing driver on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or whatever else you need.”

She nods, but a line forms between her brows. “That’s generous, but I can drive?—”

“Driver,” Nico repeats, tone gentle and unyielding. He moves a blue block— THERAPY VAN —to recurring status on the screen. “Those vans are large and unwieldy and you have enough on your plate.”

She smiles, gratitude plain in her olive-green eyes. “Thank you.”

And me? I push blueberries around in my bowl like lost planets, pretending the steam fogging my face is the only reason my eyes sting.

It’s not just the helplessness. It’s that no one even asks me for help. And I don’t know where to jump in like Sal and Nico have. They’ve handled it all. Without me.

Times like this, I remember it’s good that I’m pretty, because sometimes, they treat me like decoration.

Tabitha takes a sip of coffee, then sets the mug down like it’s suddenly too heavy. “I’ll stay at Grandma’s for the first two weeks,” she says, voice low. “She’ll need help transferring Erin from bed to chair. After that, I can commute back if you…need me to resume regular duties.”

Nobody corrects her. My chest convulses.

I’m sure oatmeal is going to reappear. Regular duties —code for the contract.

Yet none of us has invoked that thing since the first night.

No required companion dates, no mandatory scenes.

That’s not how we enjoy someone, so it never occurred to us to invoke it.

Have we been idiots? We gave her freedom but forgot to tear up the leash.

I tell her, “Erin comes first, Tabitha.”

Nico adds, “Period.”

We mean well. She even smiles. But I see her shoulders hunch, as if she’s bracing for the other shoe to fall. She’s grateful—grateful, damn it—because she still thinks our permission matters more than her choice.

I nearly throttle my spoon.

Breakfast dissolves into logistics. Braces, grab-bars, insurance fight predictions. I miss half of it. More than half, probably. Numbers ricochet around me but don’t stick.

Tabitha finally rises. “I promised Erin’s nurse I’d FaceTime before morning vitals.”

I stand too fast, and my chair legs scrape the kitchen’s stone floor. She squeezes my shoulder on the way out, a gentle thanks for understanding that makes me want to break something. She pads down the corridor and out of sight.

Nico scrolls through emails. Sal collects the oatmeal bowls. They’re acting like this is some kind of normal.

Not on my watch.

I slam a hand on the table. “Conference. Map room. Now.”

The map room is a museum of old ambitions. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets of expedition charts, a bronze sextant, globe lamps glowing pale. Nico stands near a nineteenth-century relief of Patagonia, and Sal closes the door with a quiet click that sounds more final than it should.

I plant myself mid-carpet. “The end of the contract is four days away.”

Sal crosses his arms over a navy cardigan. “You think we’ve forgotten?”

“Everything that happened over breakfast feels like we’re all pretending this isn’t happening,” I snap.

“She thinks she has to pack her bags and disappear, and then reappear to have a job at the company. Like she has to pretend to be our girlfriend to work for us or something. How can you both sit there and be calm about this?”

Nico pockets his phone, face calm water over deep churn. “What do you want, Dante?”

“I want her to stay. Not because of that fucking contract, but because she chooses us.” I rub the back of my neck. “But how do we ask? Move in forever, please sign here? That’s just another leash.”

“So you’re worried about locking her in?” Sal lifts a shoulder. “I’m worried she’ll sprint out the door before sunrise to avoid goodbyes.”

I pace past the Dolomites model. “What can we offer that another suitor can’t? Can’t be cash. She never cared about money unless it was for her family. Can’t be adrenaline trips. She’ll smile but say Erin needs a routine. It needs to be something only the three of us, as a package, can deliver.”

Silence, thick as varnish. Nico studies a wall chart of ancient sea routes, lips pressed thin. Sal watches him, then returns his gaze to me, like we’re a tennis match and he’s the line judge.

I pull at my hair in frustration. “We’re billionaires and geniuses, and we can’t figure out how to keep the woman we love? Ridiculous. We’re ridiculous. We don’t deserve her if we can’t figure this out.”

Sal’s voice is gravel-low. “Can’t hostile-takeover a heart.”

“Then an invitation,” I counter, “but one she can’t mistake for charity.”

Sal nods once, slow. “An invitation that says build a future with us, on your terms.”

My brain sparks a dozen half-baked stunts. A proposal skywritten over the villa, a flash-mob dance starring Erin, a ring forged from hospital titanium scraps. Too trivial. Too showy. She deserves substance.

Nico finally turns from the map wall. He looks at us, something sharpening behind his eyes, the way numbers align right before he closes a quarter sixty million ahead.

He sets both palms on the table. “I have an idea.”