Page 40 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

She goes still. Her lips part and her scent shifts, warm honey, vanilla, and the faintest thread of arousal threading through the fear. She's responding to my Alpha pheromones, to the possessive growl that I can't quite suppress. Her biology reads mine and says yes. Here. Yours.

I prop myself up on one elbow and look at her. Really look. Not the way I looked at her in the hallway when she first arrived, assessing, strategic, trying to understand the threat she posed to my control. Not the way I looked at her in the kitchen, hungry, desperate, and barely leashed.

This is different. This is the way you look at something you almost lost.

I trace the line of her face with my eyes. Forehead. Temple. The soft curve of her cheek. The mole on her neck, Deklan's mark, purple and dark against her skin. My jaw tightens at the sight of it, something possessive and primal surging through me. Not jealousy, something deeper. Recognition. Deklan claimed her because she needed to be claimed. Because she needed to know she mattered.

And I let him. I stood in the hallway and listened to him put his mouth on her, and I didn't interfere. Because I said not until she asks, and she asked him, not me.

But God, I wanted it to be me.

My hand moves before I can stop it. My fingers trace the same path my eyes just traveled - forehead, temple, cheek. Her skin is impossibly soft. Warm. Alive.

She shivers under my touch, her pupils dilate, and her scent thickens.

"You almost left," I say. My voice is barely above a whisper.

"I know."

"You almost walked out of this building, onto a bus, and disappeared. And I…" My voice cracks. I clear my throat. "I would have had to live the rest of my life knowing you were out there somewhere, and I didn't fight hard enough to make you stay."

"JD, "

"Let me finish." My fingers trail down to her jaw. Her chin. The hollow of her throat, where her pulse is racing. "I've lost things before. Everyone I grew up with in the system, gone. Scattered. Some of them dead. I lost Mara." My throat tightens. "I held Deklan when he found out. I sat in the hospital corridor and held him while he screamed. And there was nothing I could do. No amount of money, no amount of power, no amount of being JD Blaine could bring her back."

Willow's eyes are wet. A tear slides down her temple and disappears into the pillow.

"But you," I press my palm flat against her chest, feeling her heartbeat. "You're alive. You're here. And I almost lost you not to death, but to doubt. To lies. To a woman who couldn't hold us because she was never the right one."

"Serena, "

"Is dealt with." The words come out harder than I intend. Darker. The Alpha in me surges, and my pheromones flood the room, pine and smoke, thick and possessive. Willow's scent responds immediately, honey and vanilla spiking, her body arching slightly toward mine.

I pull back, force myself to breathe, force the Alpha down.

"Not like that," I say. "Not violence. But she will never come near you again. I've already had my legal team file a restraining order and a complaint with the agency. Her access to the matching platform has been revoked. If she contacts you again, by phone, in person, through a third party, she'll be dealing with civil and criminal charges."

Willow blinks. "You did that at 3 AM?"

"I did it in the car. While Deklan drove. While Knox," I pause. "Knox was otherwise occupied."

"Otherwise occupied how?"

"He was having a conversation with Serena's employer. Apparently, she works for a PR firm that handles accounts for two of our portfolio companies. One phone call from our acquisitions team, and her position is... under review."

Willow's eyes widen. "JD. That's…"

"That's what happens when you threaten an omega under my protection." My jaw tightens. "Under our protection. She came to that park deliberately. She tracked you. She targeted you. And she will face consequences."

A tear slides down Willow's cheek. But she's not crying from sadness. The look on her face is something else entirely, something raw and wondering, like she can't quite believe what she's hearing.

"No one's ever..." She trails off. Swallows. Starts again. "No one's ever fought for me before. Not like this."

The words hit me like a sledgehammer.

No one. In twenty-three years, no one has ever protected this woman. No one has ever stood between her and the things that hurt her. She grew up in a small town with a mother who worked herself to the bone and a father who vanished. She navigated the world alone, with nothing but stubbornness and a scent she couldn't control. And when she walked into our penthouse, into our lives, she was bracing for abandonment.

Not hoping for love. Bracing for loss.