Page 55 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

Fond. Finished.

And every ounce of the loyalty that used to be split between four names now runs one direction, up Bellflower Lane, to a woman who rebuilt herself out of what we left on the ground.

That's not a wound.

That's just the arithmetic, and for once I've decided to sit in it instead of driving off before the check comes.

I see her on the Harbor Steps a little before noon, and my whole body forgets the last five years in the space of one breath.

She's coming down from Main Street with her clipboard against her chest and a vendor bag over one shoulder.

Mid-thought, chin tipped, the loose romantic knot of her hair already losing its war with the pins. The light's doing the thing the light does to her, finding the copper in the auburn.

She's in a wrap dress the color of the inside of a peach, and she hasn't seen me yet. The sun dusts her with gold, finding the copper in her hair and the warmth in her freckled skin. Her sandals show the painted tips of her toes; I forgot how that used to undo me in summer. She's softer than I remember, or maybe just softer than memory lets me have her, and for one unguarded second, I get to look at her the way I'm no longer allowed to.

My body forgets the last five years, rising to attention in the space of a breath. Her scent hits me and I feel everything she used to do to me at once.

My cock thickens, hard and urgent, while the rest of me aches with the kind of longing that finds the hollow spots and settles in.

Then the wind shifts off the water, heightening her scent ten-fold, and I have to put a hand on the stone rail to avoid that wave of dizziness that happens when you’re completely smitten for an Omega who’s aroma drives you absolutely insane — in a dangerously good way.

Sun-warm apricot. White roses. Vanilla under it, and that low amber warmth that used to mean she felt safe enough to stophiding. She's not wearing the neutralizer today. She didn't know she'd run into me, and the full uncut truth of her comes across ten feet of morning air and lands in my chest like a dropped tray.

Five years I couldn't drink anything with apricot in it. Bartenders would build me something pretty and I'd smell it and hand it back. I told people I didn't care for stone fruit.

The word arrives before I can stop it, rising up my throat with a lifetime of muscle behind it, warm and easy and mine —Sweet Apricot?—

I lock my teeth on it.

No. That name's in a drawer now, next to the keys.

"Amber."

I’ve clearly failed the name game because here I am using her real name when I’m supposed to go along with the professionalism we agreed upon. I await her scrutiny, my eyes locking on her as she approaches.

She stops three steps up, which leaves us almost eye to eye, and I watch the exact moment my scent reaches her, because her whole face does a thing and then undoes it; professional shutters coming down over a window that opened half an inch.

Her eyes have gone greener than they were a second ago.

That's the tell she's never been able to train. All beautiful in their green illuminating surface, dilated and fighting to hide the hurt and anger that’s surely buried in the same coat.

"You signed," she says.

No hello. Fair.

"Thursday. Four o'clock. Every page."

"Did you read it, or did you sign it the way you do everything? Fast, charming, and halfway out the door?"

There she is.

God, I've missed the edge on her.

"I read it." I keep my hands visible, both of them, loose at my sides, because there's a clause about that and because I mean it. "You want me to prove it?"

"Yes." Her chin comes up. "Actually, I do."

"No physical contact without spoken consent, and that includes a steadying hand, an elbow, a coat over a chair. No scent-marking, held control at minimum, every room, every day." I keep my voice level, itemized, a man reading back an order so the kitchen knows he heard it. "No personal conversation on the clock, and you define the clock, which is all of it. No decision about this wedding without your written sign-off, down to the fold in a napkin. Nothing that uses this town, that couple, or their money as leverage on you. And—" I hold her eyes for this one, because it's the one that matters, "—no names from before. No Sweet Apricot. It's in the appendix. Clause nineteen. I initialed it twice, because once didn't feel like enough."