My phone buzzed a while later. Wes. “Hello?”

“I’m outside at the door. They’re out here, but Henry and I are ready.”

“Be right there.”

Putting on my trusty hat and glasses, I took a breath and went outside. The door locked behind me, and I was slammed with sound and light.

Esme, have you finally tricked a pack into putting up with your shit? Have you finally been knotted enough to thaw out? Are you slumming it because none of the high-class packs want you? What would your father think?

I tried to shut out the words and let Henry and Wes help me through the crowd and to the back of the car. They were just words. They didn’t matter. I kept the mantra strong in my head. Just words. Only trying to get a response.

“Thank you for coming,” I said.

“Of course. Eva told us we’re with you for the foreseeable future.”

I let my head flop back against the seat. “Yeah. Because I’m once again the center of attention.”

“Where are we going?” Henry asked from the front.

“My house. I need to change, and then lunch at Aurelia’s with Mom. Depending on how long that takes, I need to do some work at home before coming back here. I’ll be staying here for the courtship, at the pack’s request.”

I caught Wes’s quickly hidden smile.

“It’s okay, you can be happy.”

“I am, Miss Williams. It’s good to see you find a pack who knows your worth.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. It was the truth. It was nice, even if everything in me was terrified it would collapse like a house of cards. I fluctuated between being scared and elated.

It didn’t take long to reach my house, and there were paps there too, but the words barely reached me this time. “I won’t be long.”

Under my clothes, I’d taken Rylan’s idea to heart, putting on some of the sexy lingerie they’d bought. The lacy bra and underwear set were dark grey, and I had no idea who had chosen them. All I knew was I hadn’t seen this set in Luke’s selections.

But for my actual lunch outfit? I didn’t know. Without the guys, I would have put on nice pants and a blazer over some kind of t-shirt. Nice, but edgy enough to fit the role which had been cast for me. I liked being edgy sometimes, but I liked softness more. Had Eva been given freedom to choose her persona, we would have been entirely reversed. She would have been the one with edge, and I would have been the one in floral dresses.

Pushing aside my normal clothes, I went to the back of my closet, where I kept things I loved but hadn’t had a chance to wear.