Page 85 of The Florist and Her Alphas

She marches three steps into the shop and stops dead in the doorway to the back room.

Her eyes land on me first.

I’m curled sideways across Julian’s lap, his hand still tangled in my hair. She notices Ezra leaning against the edge of the zinc worktable, all coiled tension in a charcoal suit. Then her gaze turns to Cole, who’s filling the doorframe. Then to August, still holding my knee.

Mira’s mouth falls open. Her eyebrows climb somewhere near her hairline.

My face goes scarlet so fast it actually stings. I jump off Julian’s lap, nearly tripping over the chair leg, and I cross the back room in three steps and grab Mira’s free arm and start towing her toward the front of the shop before she can fully process what she just walked in on.

“Nope,” I say. “Nope. Out. Come on.”

Mira lets herself be towed, mostly. She’s still gawking back over her shoulder the entire way, the bat dangling forgotten at her side.

“Isn’t your heat over by now?” she asks.

“Yes,” I tell her when we reach the front door. “They’re just here to look into my ex.”

Her lips twitch.

“Whatever’s happening back there,” she says, her lips twitching. “Try not to have too much fun and get accidentally marked forever by them.”

A laugh startles out of me as I shove her gently toward the door.

I stand there and watch her cross the sidewalk back toward the bakery, bat still hanging from her hand like she forgot it’s there.

I turn back toward the back of my shop. “What happens now? What if Silus really does come back?”

“You don’t have to be brave right now,” August says, taking my hands in his. “You could come back with us tonight. To the penthouse. You don’t have to stay here.”

“I need to be here,” I say, shaking my head. “I want to spend more time here and get caught up. I’m not ready to live there yet.”

Nobody argues right away. Ezra’s jaw works, a muscle ticking there. Cole doesn’t move from the doorframe, but his hands flex once at his sides. August nods, squeezes my hands once more, and steps back.

“One of us should stay with her tonight,” Julian says. “I’m volunteering.”

I open my mouth to refuse. I close it again. I think about my empty apartment upstairs, about the sprig of pine sitting sealed in Cole’s jacket pocket, and I don’t want to be alone tonight. I really don’t.

“Fine,” I say, sharper than I mean it, before my own resolve can go soft on me. “But no funny business. You sleep on the couch. This is a security arrangement. That’s all.”

Julian raises both hands, palms out, the picture of innocence. “You have my word,” he says. “All the space you need. Perfect gentleman.” I can see him fighting a grin the whole time he says it.

I can also see, in the way the other three go very still around me, that each of them had been quietly hoping I’d allow him to stay.

“Julian will be on his very best behavior, I’m sure,” says Ezra almost sarcastically.

Julian, completely unbothered, just grins wider. “Relax, Ezra.”

After a beat, Cole pushes off the doorframe. He looks at me—slow, steady, like he’s taking inventory of every piece of me. “If you need anything tonight. Anything at all. Call me.”

I nod. He leaves, the bell ringing once behind him.

Ezra and August follow a few minutes later.

Ezra kisses my forehead at the door, his hand lingering against my jaw for one long second before he lets go. August hugs me hard enough to lift me half an inch off the floor.

“Bye,” I say softly, sad they were leaving but also secretly relieved that Julian is staying with me.

Twenty-Two