Chapter 482

Olivia

“I was just seeing myself out.”

Dan brushed past me without another word. I watched him go, still blinking incredulously. What was that conversation I had just overheard? And most importantly, was Nathan alright?

“Hey, Liv.” Nathan’s voice came from the doorway to his study. I looked up to see him standing there, looking a bit flustered but otherwise okay. A moment later, I heard the front door open and close. Dan was finally gone.

“Hey.” I stood and walked over to him. “You alright? That sounded… intense.”

Nathan simply shrugged. “Just an impromptu visit, that’s all,” he said. He paused then, patting his belly. “I’m starving. Did I hear you say you brought food home, or…?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, gesturing over to the table. “Help yourself.”

With a smile and a grateful kiss on the cheek, Nathan walked over to the dining room table and began unpacking the food. The scent of greasy, delicious and wonderfully-bad-for-you takeout foot filled the room, and I felt my own stomach growl in anticipation.

But I hardly had much of an appetite after what I had just heard.

“You’re really sure you’re fine?” I asked. I took a step closer to Nathan and studied his face carefully while he unpacked our dinner. “What did Dan want, anyway?”

“Oh, just the usual,” Nathan said with a sigh that was a little too casual for my liking. “Actually…” He paused and set the plastic utensils down, then turned to look at me. “There’s supposed to be a press conference this week. I’d like you to come, if you don’t mind.”

I quirked an eyebrow at this sudden request. “Why the short notice?” I asked.

Nathan set his jaw hard for a moment before responding. It became clear to me then that something really was going on here—something that, for some reason, he didn’t feel comfortable sharing with me.

“I guess it’s an annual thing,” Nathan finally said. “I don’t know. Dan only just told me today, actually.”

“Oh.” I pursed my lips a bit. “Well, I’ll go with you. But he should give you more warning if it’s a regular thing.”

Nathan nodded, then returned his attention to the food. “Come on, Liv. Let’s eat, maybe put a movie on too?”

“Sure. I can’t argue that.”

…

With Elliot and Aurora finally down for the night, I sank down onto the edge of the bathtub and swirled the fragrant salts around in the water while I waited for it to finish filling up. Across from me, Nathan stood at the bathroom sink, shaving.

“So, this press conference,” I said cautiously. “What’s the etiquette like?”

Nathan flicked some shaving cream off of his razor into the sink and shrugged. He had been doing that a lot today, shrugging; a surefire sign that he was stuck in his head. I just wished that he would tell me whatever was on his mind.

“I think all of the Alphas on the association and their Lunas will be there,” he said as he went back to his shaving. “There’s supposed to be a luncheon afterwards.”

A luncheon, I thought to myself. Yay. Ever since everything that had happened with Colin, even though it felt as if it was an eternity ago by this point, the idea of luncheons made my stomach twist. It felt like just another opportunity to get picked apart by snooty socialites.

And after the dinner party, it had become clear to me that I was an outsider to them; younger, a mom to two and pregnant yet again, and inexperienced.

“I don’t think the other Lunas like me very much,” I said absentmindedly.

Nathan met my gaze in the mirror. “You only met them once, really,” he said. “And besides, Clarissa seems to like you a lot. I thought you two really hit it off.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I had been holding and stood, slipping off my robe to step into the steamy water. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I guess we did.”

I sank down into the hot water, images of Clarissa floating through my mind. I guess we had hit it off; in a strange way, to say the least. There was some kind of connection there, and I still wondered if we were somehow related.

“You know, I still can’t get over how similar Clarissa and I are to each other,” I said with a chuckle. “It’s uncanny. Plus the twins latched onto her right away.”

Nathan laughed along with me. “Yeah. I saw the way they kept grabbing at her during the gender reveal party.”

I chewed my lip for a moment, thinking, before I drew in a sharp breath. “You don’t think—”

“You two look alike, and she’s a sweet person,” Nathan said softly. “But, Liv, I doubt you’re related. I mean, she and Dan live so far away, you know?”

“Yeah…” I sank down into the water, ignoring the way the heat seared at my tender skin. “I guess you’re right.”

Finishing up his shaving, Nathan wiped his face on a towel and turned toward me. I couldn’t help but smile; he always looked so handsome right after a fresh shave. And with his shirt off, with his muscles gleaming from the steam in the air, he looked like a model beneath the soft lighting.

“Join me?” I asked, sitting up a bit to give him some room.

Nathan grinned. “Gladly.”

I watched as he disrobed. A slight heat crept up into my cheeks as his half-hard member exposed itself. When he sank down into the water, I let my foot trail up his thigh beneath the surface. He let out a slow, contented breath.

We sat like that for a few minutes in silence, just enjoying the peace and quiet and each other’s company. It was moments like this that I always cherished; the comfort of being near each other. After all those years apart, I felt as if I would never get tired of having him by my side.

But, still, there was so much on my mind. The sound of Dan’s voice earlier kept haunting me, and I was nothing if not curious.

“Nathan,” I finally muttered, “please tell me what actually happened earlier. I heard Dan raising his voice at you.”

Nathan slowly raised his eyes away from the bath bubbles. Their blue-green depths seemed to flicker with something unreadable for a moment as he looked at me.

“He didn’t raise his voice,” he said slowly.

I frowned. “Don’t lie to me.”

Finally, Nathan let out a slow breath. His shoulders seemed to slump a bit, and he ran his damp hand through his hair. “Alright,” he said. “We’ve been having a bit of a disagreement lately on… moral issues.”

“Moral issues?”

He nodded. “But Liv, I don’t want to get too into it just yet. Not until I know more. I hope you can respect that.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words would come. Finally, I closed it again and simply nodded. “Okay,” was all I could say.

After all, I trusted Nathan—not just as my best friend and husband, but as our pack’s Alpha. If he needed to keep whatever this was to himself for now, then I would let him.

And yet, when he excused himself to his study that night and never returned to bed, my mind whirled relentlessly with possibilities.

Moral issues… What could that possibly mean?