I Can Hear My Cold Husband’s Dirty Thoughts Chapter 11

I Can Hear My Cold Husband’s Dirty Thoughts Chapter 11

The morning of the full moon, my war council convened in the penthouse kitchen: one alpha werewolf making espresso, one cursed homewrecker eating all our croissants, one lingerie analyst with a Pelican case of surveillance gear, and me, the only unemployed mind-reader in the room.

“Okay, so first,” Kane said, raising a hand, “am I forgiven? Because the Antarctica memo was on my desk this morning

and I just want to say, I checked, we don’t have an office in-”

“We will,” said Damian, without turning around.

“He’s forgiven,” I said. “Probationally. Kane, the cameras.”

“Right!” He popped the case. “Button cams, pen cams, one camera that looks like a croissant-Lacey, that’s a camera

Lacey put it down, chewing slowly.

“The catering kitchen is covered,” Kane went on. “If anyone goes near Mr. Blackwood’s water glass tonight, we’ll have

it in 4K.”

“And Marcus contacted me at six a.m.,” Lacey said, swallowing. “Burner number. Wants me on the waitstaff again. Same vial, double the dose-it’s in my coat.” She slid a small dark bottle across the marble. “He also itemized my blackmail, which, rude. So yes, I’m flipping. I’d flip for free. I’d flip for these croissants.”

Damian picked up the vial, and his nostrils flared. “Wolfsbane, silver nitrate, and something else. Stronger. He’s not trying to embarrass me anymore. A dose like this could kill.” His thoughts went arctic. Out loud, mildly: “Lacey. You’ll

wear a wire.”

“Sir, I’m cursed, not stupid. I’ve BEEN wearing a wire. I record everything since the Brooklyn bar incident.” She held up her phone. “I have Marcus on tape from the first dosing. ‘Make him drink it before the board meeting or your contract

details go public.’ Time-stamped.”

The kitchen went quiet. Damian looked at me. I looked at him.

“We have him,” his mind said.

“We have him,” I said out loud, and Kane glanced between us, deeply unsettled.

“They do that,” Lacey told him. “Married telepathy. Don’t think about anything embarrassing.”

“Why would you SAY that, now it’s all I can-”

“OKAY,” I said. “Tonight. The shareholder meeting starts at eight. Moonrise is eight forty. Lacey takes the vial

assignment, dumps it, swaps in colored water, and stays wired. Kane runs cameras. Marcus thinks his plan is live,

so he’ll have prepared his big moment-the moment he’s planning to expose a transformed wolf to two hundred

witnesses. Except-

“Except there’ll be no wolf,” Kane said.

“Oh no,” I said. “There’ll be a wolf.”

Everyone looked at me. Including my husband, whose eyebrows did a thing I’d never seen before.

“Marcus’s whole play depends on the world finding out what Damian is against his will. Exposure as a weapon. But

weapons only work if you’re afraid of them.” I turned to Damian. “What happens, under pack law, if a wolf reveals

himself? Freely. On his own terms?”

“Then it isn’t exposure,” came his thought, slow and stunned, gears turning. “It’s a claiming. Territory declared in the

open. It hasn’t been done in a century-” “The old families would have to acknowledge it,” he said aloud. “And Marcus’s

leverage turns to ash. But Sienna-the human world. The board. The cameras. There’s no walking it back. Everyone will

know what I am. What our children-” He stopped himself, ears actually going red. “Presumptuous. PRESUMPTUOUS

“Children, plural? We’ll circle back,” I said, and his blush deepened, and Lacey mouthed wow at Kane.

I took my husband’s hand across the marble island.

“You spent your whole life hiding because one person screamed,” I said. “And then you spent two years one wall away

from me because a piece of paper told you I didn’t want you. Hiding hasn’t protected you, Damian. It just made you

easy to hunt.” I squeezed. “So tonight, we stop hiding. All of it. The wolf, the marriage, everything. Let Marcus light his

match and find out the house is already on fire.”

For a long moment, he just looked at me. Then he lifted my hand and kissed it, and his thoughts arrived steady and

bright as moonrise:

“Forget the boardroom. I’d follow this woman into the sun.”

“Eight o’clock,” the alpha of Blackwood said. “Wear the green dress.”