“Should I sign up for some classes? Maybe a leadership seminar?”
I almost laughed out loud. “I’m sure Faythe and Marc are teaching you everything you need to know.”
Brian nodded. “And your father will take over from there, after the wedding.”
The wedding. I’d been trying not to think about that for almost four years.
“We should really set a date.”
I shook my head, and too late, I realized I should have at least pretended to give that some thought. “There’s still plenty of time.”
His frown deepened, and he suddenly looked younger than twenty-six. “I thought you’d get more excited as you got closer to graduation, but you still don’t seem very interested in the wedding. Your mom and I are practically planning it ourselves.”
My brows rose. “You’re helping my mom plan the ceremony?”
“Someone has to.” He crossed his arms over his jacket. “But, Abby, I don’t know the difference between periwinkle and sky blue. You’d know that if you ever answered your phone.”
“I’m sorry.” I hadn’t been fair to him, and I had to fix that. Brian was exactly what I’d needed when I was eighteen, and it wasn’t his fault that I was no longer the girl I’d been when I’d agreed to marry him. That now I wanted more.
That when I closed my eyes, I saw a set of bright blue ones staring back at me.
I shook my head, trying to shake loose thoughts I had no business thinking. Brian would make a great father, and so what if he wasn’t stellar Alpha material? Times had changed. I could be the stellar Alpha.
“Okay.” I exhaled, mentally resigning myself to what I was about to say. “Send me whatever wedding stuff my mom gave you.” I held my index finger up to stop his smile before it got out of hand. “But consider yourself warned—I don’t know the difference between periwinkle and sky blue either.”
“Well, I’m sure either of them will look beautiful on you.” He frowned. “Oh, wait, the bride usually wears white, doesn’t she?”
Usually. The word echoed in my brain until I couldn’t hear anything else.
Brian looked horrified. “That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean you can’t wear white. Of course you’ll wear white.”
“Brian.” But I didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m so sorry.” He hesitated. “You never talk about it, though. Don’t you think we should—?”
“No.” I said it too quickly, and he looked hurt. “I’m sorry, but no.” The last thing I wanted was to discuss my very darkest memories in the middle of the woods with the man I’d be marrying in six months.
“If you change your mind…” He tried to pull me into an embrace but let go immediately when I didn’t relax or hug him back. “Okay, you’re not ready. That’s okay. Sometimes, it takes a long time to get over—”
“That’s not it,” I snapped, irrationally irritated by his assumption that he knew what I was thinking and feeling.
He knew nothing. Because I’d never told him. Just the thought of how that conversation might go made me sick to my stomach.
“Is it me?” Brian frowned, studying my eyes. “Am I the problem?”
“No.”
“Then it’s Jace.” His gaze dropped to the ground, but not before I caught a fleeting glimpse of jealousy. “I should have known.”
“What?” My pulse raced with a sudden burst of alarm. “No—”
He looked up sharply. “I see the way you look at him, Abby. He’s so pissed at you right now that he can’t even stand to be in the same house with you, but you still have that look on your face, like you want to take a bath in his pheromones.”
My face flushed, and I hoped he couldn’t see that in the dark. What I wanted didn’t matter, because it wasn’t reciprocated. Because it would be extraordinarily inappropriate. Because I’d already given my word and accepted a ring. “It’s not like that, Brian. He’s my Alpha.”
“That’s why you want him, isn’t it? It’s some kind of biological imperative. He’s an Alpha, so deep down, you think he must be the best possible father for your kids, but—”
“Okay, that’s enough!” I snapped, finished with trying to coddle his ego. “My biological imperatives are not the issue. I don’t even have biological imperatives, because this isn’t the Stone Age and I’m not some knuckle-dragging cavewoman, helpless to fight her reproductive urges.”
Brian’s eyes widened, and I could practically smell panic in the beads of sweat that popped up on his forehead. He’d never heard me yell. He only knew the Abby who’d been afraid of her own shadow. Afraid of everyone’s shadow.
The Abby who would agree to almost anything just so she wouldn’t have to talk anymore.
But that Abby was gone, and this Abby was going to have to start talking her way out of trouble rather than into it.