that my mind isn’t reeling. I’m not sure how to process it all or where that leaves me.
“Why’d you make up that contract?” I ask. “Why me?”
His hand drops away. “You’re gonna be pissed.”
My eyes narrow on him. “I’m already pissed,” I remind him. “So spit it out.”
“I wanted to fuck with your matriarch.”
I blink at him, waiting for the punchline. “Umm…”
“That lounge she took over? The one with all the debt? They were my allies. The mat and pat were good friends of mine. She fucked with them, and I wanted her to pay for it. So I watched. I waited. I knew she took over a shit ton of debt that she couldn’t handle. I made all the other lounges stop doing business with her so that she was drowning in it. And then I brought the contract offer when she was desperate and couldn’t hold off any longer.”
“So I was just a way to get back at my mother?”
“You were just a name on a piece of paper,” he tells me. “I didn’t know you back then. Never even really thought of you as a person. I was too focused on my plan.”
“Which was what exactly?”
His face hardens. “Making the matriarch give up her only heir to me. I figured that would be a blow to her ego, and it was, but I let her believe that was the end. I’d give a dowry for you and that was it. Except I never planned to ally with them. As soon as I had you, I planned to challenge her, kill her, and then take over your lounge.”
A whoosh of breath leaves me. He’s not a prison guard right now. In this moment, as he explains his cold plan for vengeance, he’s every bit the ruthless alpha that everyone knows him as. “And you’d just keep me locked in a tower so you could visit me and gloat?” I ask.
His gaze is unwavering. “Yes.”
That’s what I thought.
I rear back and punch him in the arm. Hard.
“Ow,” he complains, rubbing the spot with a frown.
“What am I supposed to do with that, Rook?” I demand, moving away from him. “How am I supposed to be okay with any of this?” I yell as I gesture to his stunning and very tastefully decorated house.
He shakes his head in a frustrated loss. “I don’t know. I just know that I lov—care about you, and together, we’ll figure this out,” he reassures me, trying to close the distance between us again.
I back up until I feel the cold glass of the window against my back. “Did you just drop the L word?” I demand, shocked. “First you kidnap me, blindfold and tie me up, then you walk in here and drop the hey, I’m Alpha Bowen bomb, and now you L word me?” I ask, my voice high-pitched and squeaky.
“No,” he answers way too quickly. “I did not L word you, I mumbled care. I definitely said care,” he argues, and I narrow my eyes at the lying liar words coming out of his mouth. “And Trex said you came willingly in the car. I didn’t know that you thought you’d been kidnapped. I’m sorry for the tying you up part, but Trex thought you’d take a swing when you first saw me, so he was just trying to protect my face. He lost fifty bucks by the way. He won’t be happy about it,” Rook tells me, like he expects me to laugh or feel bad or something.
I just stare at him.
“You totally L worded me,” I insist, not letting him distract me with the rest of his words. I point an accusatory finger at Rook’s face when a blush starts to bloom in his cheeks. “See! You know it’s true. Admit it!”
He scoffs. “Psh, me? Alpha Bowen, dropping the L word after just a handful of months? No, that’s not what happened. You misheard,” he defends casually as he shifts his weight from the balls of his feet to his heels and back again.
Without warning, I spring at him with a growl. He somehow manages to catch me and keeps me from putting him into the head lock I was going for. He tries to cuddle me against his chest, but I’m not having that shit, so I keep trying to grab him, and he’s forced to start wrestling me back. “Tell the truth!” I yell as I pinch at his neck and try to sideswipe his feet with my