"Tomas," she says.
"Chiara." I glance at Daniel briefly, and he finds something extremely compelling in the dock planks. "What are you doing here?”
"I needed to see you," she says, and there's no softening in it, no approach from the side. That was always her. Straight at thecenter of a thing before you'd decided whether to let her near it. "I've been trying to get onto the island for two weeks."
"And he brought you," I say, nodding toward Daniel.
"He owed me a favor." She steps closer. "I'm here now. That's what matters." Her voice drops slightly. "You miss me. As much as I miss you."
The water moves against the dock. A rope creaks somewhere in the afternoon heat. Daniel becomes one with the dock furniture.
"Chiara," I say.
"I shouldn't have left." Another step, close enough now that I can smell her, familiar in the way of something stored rather than something present. "I've known that for two years. Pride takes time and I'm here now and I'm saying it. I want it to work. The pack. All of us. I made a mistake and I'm standing here owning it."
"Not today," I tell her, and move past her toward the crates.
"Tomas," she says, turning to follow me.
"I mean it." I check the first crate and lift it. "Today is not the day. I have somewhere I need to be and someone who actually needs me there."
"I came all this way," she says.
"Stay in the bay accommodation tonight," I say, reaching for the second crate. "Carmen will sort the room. We talk tomorrow, all three of us, properly. I mean that."
"There is an omega in your house," Chiara says.
I stop.
"I can smell her from here." Her voice has gone careful over something that isn't quite under control underneath it. "That is not my scent, Tomas."
I put the crates down and turn around.
She's watching me with the expression that always meant she had already worked out the answer and was deciding what to dowith it. Not fury. Something older than fury and harder to argue with.
"She's our chef," I say. "She's unwell and she needed somewhere to rest."
"She's in pre-heat," Chiara says.
"She's pregnant," I say. "And alone. Whoever the alpha was who knocked her up." I stop myself. Why am I explaining this to her? She doesn't get an explanation. "Stay in the bay accommodation. We talk tomorrow."
Chiara says nothing. Something in her face shifts and settles.
Daniel has apparently found religion in the grain of the dock wood.
"I didn't want one omega," I say, to the bay, to the afternoon, to the specific absurdity of standing here with both. "Somehow we've got two."
I pick up the crates and start back up the hill.
"Tomorrow, Chiara," I call back without turning. "I'll find you tomorrow."
The path is steeper going up and the crates are heavier than they looked and the sun is not interested in making any of this easier.
Somewhere up that hill, in a guest room in my own house, Jennifer Sullivan is finally going to have to let someone else carry something for her.
Every instinct I have tells me she is going to make that as difficult as possible.
Good.