her to escape from her thoughts. And since she’d spent the past week and a half always glancing over her shoulder, knowing it would only be a matter of time before another hit man struck, Mila was wound far too tight. So she bagged up her bikini, towel, and other essentials before heading down to the communal pool in the basement.
Halfway down one of the stairwells, she came across none other than Adele. Shit. Her inner cat rose to her feet with a hiss. Mila forced a smile. “Adele, hi.”
Adele’s face brightened. “Hey, I’ve just come to pay my mom a quick visit. How are you doing, sweetie?” Always so damn nice.
“I’m good.”
Adele puffed out a breath. “Knowing you’re on a hit list and could have people watching your every move . . . God, your head must be fried.”
Well, yeah. “It’s definitely not much fun.”
“You must be infuriated with Alex for causing trouble and then leaving you to deal with it.”
Mila bristled. “I don’t think it happened quite like that, but we’ll see.”
A playful glint entered Adele’s eye. “On a much lighter note, I heard you’re involved with one of the Phoenix Pack wolves. Ingrid tells me he’s quite a dish.”
Chest tightening, Mila felt her smile falter. This was really the last discussion she wanted to have with this female. “He is.” She hadn’t seen him since the day before Pierson’s second article was released, but Dominic had called her each night and sent her several text messages. Very sexually suggestive text messages, complete with cheesy lines.
“Valentina must really like him if she invited him for dinner. Twice.”
“Yeah, she does.” Mila had expected her mother to be offended on Mila’s behalf when she heard Dominic’s reason for staying away from her. Instead, her mother had found it “cute” that he’d want to protect Mila. It seemed that GQ could do no wrong in Valentina’s eyes.
Adele glanced around, as if checking they were alone. She lowered her voice as she went on. “Joel doesn’t like him much. He worries that the wolf is too much like Grant. But I happen to agree with Ingrid—life’s all about living. If this Dominic guy can make you happy, even for just a little while, you should grab on to that.”
Her cat lashed out with her claws, not liking the sound of Dominic’s name in the mouth of this feline who’d stolen her true mate. Mila tried making excuses to leave, but Adele just kept on talking.
“And I hope you’ll reconsider immigrating to Russia. We’d miss you. And Joel . . . well, he hasn’t made many friends in the pride. Doesn’t click with people easily. But he considers you a good friend, and I wouldn’t like him to lose one of the very few he’s made.”
God, Mila’s mouth was hurting from the strain of keeping the fake smile in place. “I can understand that. He’s very lucky to have you.”
“I’m the lucky one.” Adele put her hand on Mila’s shoulder, and her cat wanted to bite it. “You take care.” With that, she headed up the stairs.
Letting out a long breath, Mila continued her descent to the basement. Pacing within her, her cat hissed and spat—she despised Adele almost as much as she despised Joel.
He’d come to the barbershop that morning to have his hair cut. Strangely, it hadn’t been as hard for Mila to touch Joel as it usually was, but it had been no less easy for her cat. The only thing that had ever calmed the feline in Joel’s presence was having Dominic there. How annoying.
When GQ had called her with the news that Trey wanted him to stay clear of her, Mila had been furious. Some might have said that he was only following the order of his Alpha, but she’d seen the darker side of Dominic and knew there would be no forcing him to do anything he didn’t want to do.
Affronted, she might not have answered any of his subsequent calls, but she’d lost some of her anger after reading Pierson’s second article. It was one thing to hear Dominic give her the gist of it; it was another to read it for herself and see all the lies and hurtful insults spun together.
Both she and her cat remained offended that he’d think she needed protecting from anything, but Mila could see why Dominic would be willing to heed his Alpha in this. Pierson wanted metaphorical blood, and he was slicing out at GQ in whichever ways