"You're pregnant and going into heat," Matteo says. "You need a doctor."
"It's probably just pre-heat. It'll pass."
"It will not just pass."
"You don't know that."
"Jennifer." He comes around the chair and crouches where Santos was, pale blue eyes very direct. "Let us help you. That's all. Just let us help."
My rose scent says absolutely yes, immediately, without hesitation, fully on board.
The rest of me takes a moment longer.
"The baby's fine," I say. "Whatever happens. She's fine."
Something moves through Matteo's expression that I don't have the energy to categorize.
"She," Santos says softly, behind me.
"I don't know that," I say. "It's a feeling."
The doctor arrives within minutes. By that time I'm lying on the sofa in their study. Matteo found blankets and pillows to make me comfortable. Santos found a cool towel and keeps patting me with it, whereas Tomas has been feeding me grapefruit. He says it's good for the system and the baby. I'm not sure how he knows these things, but it wasn't the time to ask.
She's silver-haired and brisk and takes one look at me on the sofa and then at the three alphas arranged around me like a very concerned architectural feature and says, "Right then."
She checks me over.
"Pre-heat, yes," she says. "Given the pregnancy it'll be compressed, maybe a day rather than the usual. But she needsquiet, warmth, and close alpha presence to get through it safely." She closes her bag. "Nothing strenuous. The baby is fine, no concerns there. She just needs to be looked after for the next twenty-four hours."
"We can do that," Tomas says.
"No," I say at the same time.
The doctor looks between us.
"We can do that," Santos says.
Another wave moves through me, longer than the others, and my rose scent fills the entire room and I feel all three of them react to it simultaneously, which is information I don't need and also impossible to ignore.
"Okay," I say. "Fine. Twenty-four hours."
Santos makes a sound that might be relief.
Their combined presence settles over everything, and my omega, that traitorous biological entity, goes completely quiet and still and warm.
The doctor gives them instructions and they try to take care of me. I may be in pre-heat and pregnant, but I'm not forgetting what happened in Vegas. I'm just glad they left me alone with the doctor. If they hadn't, then they would have figured out how far along I am and that the baby is theirs. I can only deal with one kind of drama at a time.
19
TOMAS
I'm standing at the study window when the doctor's boat disappears around the headland, and I stay there a moment longer than necessary because the alternative is turning around and dealing with everything that just happened in this room.
Jennifer is in the guest room. Santos has planted himself outside her door and hasn't moved in forty minutes, which tells me more about his state of mind than anything he's said all day.
I find Matteo at his desk, jacket still on, the Nakamura folders open in front of him like he's been staring at them rather than reading them. He looks up when I walk in and gets there before I say a word.
"Say it," he says.