Page 69 of Knot Her Beta

Jared’s breathing evens out, his purr a contented rumble, and my own eyelids grow heavy. Emily’s body has gone completely loose between us, every trace of the rigid Alpha who scrubbed a clean pan like it could keep the world together melted away.

When her head drops onto Jared’s shoulder, his arm tightens around her, and her hand tightens around mine.

We’re still lying there, tangled together, when the television turns itself off.

Chapter Eighteen

Grady

“You’ll start with the Bennett’s next week, learning the ropes.”

My father stands at the head of the mahogany table, one hand resting on the folder I’ve been reading for the last twenty minutes. The study surrounding us is all dark wood and brass, leather-bound books that no one has read in years, degrees framed on the wall in matching gold-leaf frames.

Outside the perfectly manicured yard is arranged with the same deliberate care as the numbers on the page in front of me.

I turn another page of the Bennett Media acquisition file, but my attention slides off the numbers for the third time in as many minutes.

The org chart is what does it.

It’s on page seventeen, printed and laminated, the kind of thing you hand out at investor presentations so everyone can see where they fit. Near the top, in a box drawn with thicker lines than the rest, my name sits in twelve-point Times New Roman. Director of Digital Integration. Reporting to the CFO, with dotted lines to editorial.

My head lifts. “I told you, I still have business in Pinecrest⁠—”

A wave of his hand sweeps aside my concerns. “We can send movers to bring your possessions here. Your time is money, and it shouldn’t be wasted on trivial things like packing.”

“That’s not what I mean⁠—”

“You’d be running point on the transition,” he interrupts, tapping the box. “Bennett’s team knows the content side. We know the business model. You bridge the gap.”

As I stare at my name, the laminate catches the overhead light, throwing a faint glare across the letters.

“You’ll start next week,” he says again, with more firmness now, refusing to listen to me.

It’s been like this since my return. Every time I bring up any form of hesitation, he dismisses me or overrides my concerns.

In his mind, this is the type of job he raised me to step into. I could do it with my eyes closed, and the part that spent seven years negotiating contracts and managing Aurora Storm’s career wants to.

But he’s never once asked what I want, and it bothers me.

The door opens without a knock, and Caroline steps in. She’s dressed for a Sunday meeting in tailored slacks and a cream blouse, her dark hair pulled back in that same professional knot, a tablet tucked under one arm.

She takes the chair across from mine with casual grace. “Apologies for being late. Dad wanted to go over the contract one more time.”

She sets her tablet on the table and opens a form on the screen.

“The partnership structure is straightforward,” she says, turning the page before I can even read it. “Our families have compatible goals and a shared vision for the combined entity.”

The combined entity that includes us getting married, even though we’ve only had a handful of conversations. We barely know, let alone love, each other.

She speaks about our future and the growth of the business with the same cool detachment.

It’s nothing like the way Emily spoke of a future. It hadn’t been certain. She straight out admitted that it didn’t yet make sense on paper, but she had stood in that empty cabin that she built with her own two hands and told me she wanted me, not as an asset or a bridge between business units, but as a person she was willing to fight for.

She offered me a home with a roof and warm meals and the space to decide what brought me happiness, promising to figure the rest out if only I would choose her.

And I still left.

Why did I do that? What did I hope to find in coming back here?