Page 116 of Knot Her Beta

Dominic had spent weeks trying to solve mine before I was legally his family.

The inheritance may be gone, but I had not left Connecticut empty-handed.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Jared

“Wait a second. Say that again.”

Grady stands in the center of his living room, his weight braced on his good leg, and the lamplight catches the dark gold in his hair. He had invited Emily, Leif, and me over for dinner tonight at the last minute and barely let us get settled before dropping his announcement.

“I’ve been thinking about the living arrangement,” Grady says. “And adding a second story to the cottage, or waiting for a larger house to be designed and built, isn’t practical when this place is already large enough for all four of us right now, with room to grow.”

I bark out a laugh. “It’s about damn time you realized.”

Emily elbows me in the stomach before she turns back to our Beta. “Grady, we can’t just⁠—”

She catalogs the open floor plan, the extra rooms upstairs, and the generous kitchen as if seeing it for the first time, despite having built the damn thing.

Even so, she continues, “I don’t want to crowd you. We can make do with the current arrangement. The cottage isn’t perfect, but⁠—”

“You’re not listening,” Grady cuts in, and her mouth snaps shut. “I’m not offering because it’s the most practical solution for our current needs. I want you here. All of you.”

He pauses, turning fully to Emily. “Permanently.”

When she just gapes at him, Grady limps over and takes her hand. “You proposed to me with a desk⁠—”

“She did what now?” I demand, earning myself another elbow to the gut, this one from Leif.

Grady ignored my interruption. “So now I’m proposing to you with a house. Granted, it’s another thing you built for me, but it’s too much space for one person. I know it’s not the cottage, and that you’ll have to rebuild your garden, and that you may have to share a shop with Blake, but⁠—”

He cuts off as Emily lunges forward and sweeps him off his feet, kissing him senseless.

I clap and whoop, while Leif heads for the kitchen. “There better be wine to celebrate this.”

Grady tears his lips away from Emily. “It’s in the fridge.”

I nudge Emily. “Hey, where’s my proposal?”

Still holding Grady in one arm, she smacks me in the chest. “I let you move in with me, didn’t I?”

“You made me sleep in the guest room,” I protest. “I had to weasel my way into your bed.”

“And you’ll have to go back to weaseling your way in if you ruin this moment,” she growls.

I spin toward our Omega. “Leif, Em is playing favorites!”

He returns with glasses of wine. “She built me a shoe rack and a bookcase, as well as my cabin, so…”

I gape at him. “Betrayal.”

“Sucks to be unfavored.” He holds out one of the glasses. “Drink away your misery.”

I snatch it from his hand. “Oh, I see how it is. Everyone pick on the youngest. But just wait until you’re all senile.”

Emily spins in a slow circle, taking Grady with her, and he seems content to be carried around for the moment.

“We’ll have to go through the cottage and decide what we want to bring over.” She nuzzles our Beta. “And Grady’s bedroom will have to move upstairs.”