I didn’t like either of those options. I was pretty sure my sex appeal started and ended with my omega pheromones, not to mention the fact that my coordination on land left much to be desired. It was the main reason why I’d taken up swimming as a sport—you can’t trip easily in the water.
“You won’t ever see a gunfight if I have anything to do with it.” Edison’s voice was suddenly low and his expression grave as he spoke. “But I can have Rhodes here give you some basic self-defense and weapons training if that makes you feel better.”
Rhodes’s expression shifted at the most microscopic level. I didn’t know how I knew it, but it was clear that the alpha wasn’t super enthused about becoming my own personal Mr. Miyagi a la Karate Kid.
Seeming to pick up on my sudden discomfort, Edison changed tactics. “How about this, why don’t we create a contract that benefits both of us, would that make you feel better?”
I thought about it for a moment before nodding slowly, still unsure about whether I should trust the man even to do that.
Edison’s smile was triumphant and he stood, gesturing to the gate. “Good, then shall we go to my office and get it all written out, it shouldn’t take too long.”
Six
“Why is a meal three times a day required?” Perrie asked from her seat across from me, her arms crossed stiffly over her chest.
I was already regretting my earlier words as we entered the second hour of our contract negotiation.
Offering it on a whim had been a shit idea, but I figured that she would agree to most of my requirements easily.
How wrong I’d been.
Turns out, the meek daughter of the city’s mayor was actually as stubborn as a mule—a very pretty mule, but a mule nonetheless.
We’d managed to get through most of Perrie’s items of negotiation: she wanted to wear the clothing of her choice, keep all of her hobbies, see her brother, and have autonomy over her own body.
All things that were easy to agree to—though bringing her little brother here to see her would be a huge fucking headache as Ethan Chandler was still blowing up my phone demanding that I return Perrie to Amante.
It seemed that the man had decided to throw all of his bets behind Alessandro in hopes that he would protect him from my ire. It made me curious just how much the Italian mafioso had paid for the omega sitting in front of me.
Seeing her now, I knew I would have given more than the ten million I initially paid.
Perrie was dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt, but that did little to hide the delicate beauty that had been egregiously covered by her wedding makeup yesterday.
Her deep red hair was pulled out of her face with a little plastic claw clip, showing off her high cheekbones and heart-shaped face, her plump little lips twisting into an even deeper frown while she waited for me to answer her question.
I’d reread her file this morning and knew where that nagging sense of familiarity from the wedding came from—apparently she’d been treated by Eli. I had a hazy memory of a skinny bald teenager who we’d caught eavesdropping the night that a woman decided to put a couple of bullets in me.
“How else are we supposed to get to know each other as man and wife if we don’t spend any time together?” I didn’t add that she was going to be required to go to public functions with me. I’d get to that later when she finally agreed to eat a meal with me.
“But three times a day seems like overkill. Wouldn’t dinner every day suffice?” Perrie argued, her expression pinched.
Rhodes, who had been hovering faithfully behind me for the past two hours, exhaled a silent laugh that no one but me would have been able to hear.
He was having the time of his fucking life listening to me try and negotiate with a woman who was surprisingly steadfast in her wants and needs.
“It almost sounds like you don’t want to be around me at all.” My voice was dry as I watched as her expression shifted into something unreadable, her gray eyes shuttering as she looked away from me.
What she couldn’t hide, however, was her scent. If she truly didn’t like me, her fresh strawberry scent would have erred on the side of sour—the way it had been yesterday when she was walking down the aisle as if she was walking to her execution rather than her marriage.
But instead, her strawberry scent seemed to bloom and fill my office. It was so that even Rhodes made a gurgling noise from behind me as the scent reached him.
“Look,” I said, leaning forward so she could see my expression clearly. “I intend for this marriage to be just that: a marriage. That includes, eventually, sex and other intimate situations. If you can’t even have a few meals with me, I’m afraid you are going to be in for a very long, and uncomfortable marriage.”
Perrie’s cheeks flushed red and confirmed that she was probably untouched. The thought filled me with a sense of anticipation, my inner alpha purring with pleasure at the idea of being the first person to ever claim the omega in front of me.
“But I don’t love you.” Perrie’s voice was tiny as she spoke and a tiny thread of guilt filled me. One that I promptly shoved right back down. I didn’t have time to feel guilty.
“Not every marriage needs love,” I told her, my mind going to my own parents. They couldn’t stand to be in the same room as each other most of the time—but neither of them had picked each other.
My grandfather had chosen my mother from one of the branch families and my father had never forgiven him for it. Especially after he made my father continue the marriage after my mother’s abduction and she was barely a wife.
I wanted more than that, though the jury was still out on romance and love. Love had been the most common denominator when it came to my men being killed or breaking their oath to me.
It made you distracted, and weak. But there was no reason that Perrie couldn’t be a friend and a partner.
Perrie’s gaze fell to her lap and I realized that my words had been the exact wrong thing to say. “Were you expecting to love that other pack?”
My question was soft, but held a note of incredulousness that I couldn’t quite quell.
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I guess I wasn’t.”
She sighed and there was thirty seconds of silence before she finally let her arms relax. “How about two meals a day.”
Apparently, she was back in negotiation mode.
“Fine, but I get your first heat then.”
