Chapter 134

Steven leaves first. Then Archer, with Beau behind. Beau winks at me as he passes. I ignore him, feeling too emotionally raw to interpret whatever he thinks is about to happen here.

I highly, highly doubt that Neil feels up for any kind of sexual intimacy.

Once Beau’s out the door, he closes it behind him.

Then, all at once, Neil slumps. I rush forward and catch him, wrapping my arms around his waist.

“I’m fine,” he grumbles, but that’s total bullshit because he’s basically dead weight in my arms.

“Come on,” I say, and start guiding him toward the bed. He’s really heavy. I need his help to drag him over there. Not for the first time, I really wish I had a wolf so I would be stronger.

When we get him to the bed, he collapses onto it. I help him lift his legs to get up onto the mattress.

“I don’t need the babying,” he says, yet he makes no moves to stop me. Maybe he’s too tired to. Or maybe he feels like he has to say something to preserve his masculine pride.

Either way, he’s being foolish, so I don’t really listen to him. I’m too caught up in my own head anyway, still trying to process everything he said and how it makes me feel.

Neil is fighting the silver poison, refusing to have it removed, because he wants to keep me here for the next three weeks, until the end of my contract. He said that he and Archer are drawn to me.

He must mean physically. And I feel the pull to them too. My traitorous body has a hair-trigger to horny-town whenever the brothers so much as glance at me. It’s almost like I can’t help myself.

I figured it’s because they’re unfairly hot, but what if there’s other reasons too? What if I’m drawn to them in the same way they are drawn to me, in a way that defies understanding and expectation?

It’s difficult to imagine. I can’t possibly be the regular type for women they are attracted to. I’m no supermodel or movie star. I’m not terrible, exactly, I think I’m pretty hot sometimes. But no one is going to want to put me on the covers of magazines.

And the girls that make the magazines are the ones the brothers usually pull.

None of this I can say to Neil. Or… Well, I could say it, but I’m not sure if I should. It feels too heavy, too new. Too exposing. I don’t like feeling so vulnerable with guys that have actively hurt me in the past. That might still want to hurt me.

Neil’s on the bed, watching my face from where his head rests on the pillow. I feel weird hovering over him, so I kneel on the floor beside the bed and rest my arms on the mattress.

It’s quiet in the room. Now and then, I can her the soft rumble of the dehumidifier. Neil isn’t saying anything. Neither am I.

The silence is nearly unbearable.

Maybe I’m already exposed and vulnerable. Would it truly be so bad to tell Neil the truth? The man is going through hell, apparently all for me. He should know his feelings aren’t entirely unreturned.

So in the quiet, I whisper, “I’m drawn to you, too.”

He still looks exhausted but some of the discomfort eases from his face as he starts to smile, just a little, near the corner of his mouth.

“Of course you are,” he says.

Even injured, he’s still a smug Hayes.

I briefly consider smacking him, but hold myself back. He’s injured, after all. I don’t want to do actual harm.

In my moments of consideration, Neil rolls toward me and presses his lips to mine. It’s a soft kiss. It doesn’t linger. Though it does pull me out of my thoughts and back into this moment with him. He rolls back onto the pillow.

“Sorry for tasting like silver,” he says.

“I can’t tell,” I say honestly. Without a wolf of my own, I don’t notice. Maybe if I was young like Mia, with a vulnerable immune system, I would feel a sting of pain in Neil’s presence. As it is, at my age without a wolf, I feel only his lips. “I might want to try again, to be sure.”

“I think you should,” Neil says. “For research purposes, of course.”

“Very important,” I whisper as I lean closer. I press my mouth to his. He lifts a hand and combs his fingers through my hair.

For a while, we are lost to one another. It doesn’t go farther than gentle butterfly kisses. I don’t know if Neil’s too tired or if he’s worried he will actually hurt me if we trade saliva, but I don’t push.

I have my own limits anyway. I don’t exactly want to be with an engaged man, no matter how much I’m drawn to him. No matter how indifferent Angela seems to be toward him.

I have my own boundaries, and that’s one of them.

Thoughts of Angela pull me away from the joy of the moment. Neil leans back and looks at me when I hesitate for another kiss.

“Chloe? What’s wrong?”

I could just not tell him, but… If Angela is working against him… If she wants out of the engagement, shouldn’t Neil know about it?

So I tell him. About my meeting her, about everything she said. I hold nothing back.

Neil continues to brush his fingers through my hair.

When I finish my story, he says, “It’s fine.”

I furrow my brow. He starts to smile.

“You are so cute when you are protective of me,” he says.

I furrow my brow even further, and he laughs. Then he cringes, like the laugh hurt him a bit.

“I’m not bothered by anything Angela said. She’s being practical and reasonable. Maybe it will work out that way for her.” He appears suddenly brighter. “Maybe her recusal will be enough to convince my father to back away from this gambit.” His brightness dims. “Probably not, though.”

Once again, I let my undying hatred for Neil’s father grow and grow. Just when I think I can’t hate him more than I already do, I find a well inside of myself that spills over with even more anger. It’s bottomless for this man.

How could he do this to Neil? His son? Who has been nothing but dutiful to him?

Because he said the wrong name at his engagement? Because he’s drawn to the nanny? He’s still marrying Angela! And now his own actions of implanting silver into Neil might cost the Hayes patriarch the match he so wants!

It’s so shortsighted. So cruel. So… sadistic. He is a villain.

Unfortunately, he’s also Alpha King.

“Maybe I could talk to him,” I say, while thinking, maybe I can punch him right in the face.

Neil’s hand suddenly clenches, catching some of my hair. It doesn’t hurt, but it is a sharp tug.

There’s something sharp and frosty in Neil’s gaze. Fear, maybe, but there’s something else too.

Knowing Neil, it’s the desire to protect. He shields his brothers from their father. Would it be so outrageous to think he now wants to shield me too?

“But if I meet him, then I can prove to him I’m not a threat to his legacy,” I say.

Neil’s response is short and firm, with no room for rebuttal.

“No.”