Luke was the more pragmatic one. He turned to her. “Just like you thought, there are paparazzi outside.”

Esme’s eyes went wide, and I saw the immediate panic, but Luke had it handled before I could take a single step.

“We’re fine. Everything is fine and there’s nothing to worry about. But I need you to do something for me, and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

“What?”

“Don’t leave this house without Wes or another security guard.”

Esme wrinkled her nose. “I need to call them, anyway. I don’t have my car. But I guess my run is off the table. All of them will be until they stop actively following me.”

“‘Fraid so,” I told her. “You can run on the property here. But I know it’s not the same.” The back of the house had a fence high enough to keep her safe, but our land—large as it was—didn’t compare to the woods and parks outside the city where she was used to going. I was familiar with the area. It was stunning.

“I need to go to my house before lunch with my mom, and I’ll go back afterwards to do some work and grab my clothes. But I probably won’t stay too late. I’ve gotten used to having company.”

The words startled me, and I had to turn away and take a sip of my coffee. The stark, brutal knot in my stomach at her words. Fuck, why hadn’t I even thought about it?

No wonder Esme was skittish. Not only did everyone she’d tried to love want her to be a version of herself that didn’t exist, she was alone.

Her house was lovely, but she was still by herself in it. Watching her sister have a bonded pack, and watching the people she hoped might love her pass her off as nothing, and going back to her house afterward. Alone.

I had a visceral image of her in her bed, face ragged with the aftermath of pain, just as I’d seen her that day. She would have been by herself for days, whining, trying to bear the brutal need an Omega’s instinct for an Alpha’s knot.

Fuck me.

When you realized that, it was amazing she was staying with us at all. It made sense she was terrified, because every sign told me this was what she wanted. She wanted to be loved. Spoiled. Cherished. Everything which came with being an Omega. And she was scared it was going to disappear, just like it had every time before.

“Baby, come here for a second?”