The Alpha’s Enemy Claims His Human Mate Chapter 07

The Alpha’s Enemy Claims His Human Mate Chapter 07

## Barrett

I should have brought her home.

That was the first instinct. Walk into the Crescent lobby, ride the private elevator up, and tell the woman who had been my wife for three years that sitting in a hotel was not how we handled fights in this marriage.

I stopped myself.

Elena was angry. Elena was overtired. Elena had thrown the word divorce at me in my own office like a woman who had just read a magazine article about empowerment and forgotten that the Alpha sitting across from her loved her.

She would come back. She always came back.

She had, three times in three years, needed a night of quiet to sort out whatever I had done that had hurt her feelings. She had come home the next morning every single time, softer, apologetic, telling me I was right to be patient with her. Elena was a good woman. Good women forgave.

I don’t think that’s quite what’s happening, Alpha, Reid said through Mindlink, politely.

Reid. Find me a reason why my own wife is allowed to embarrass me at work.

A pause.

As you say, Alpha.

I told him to leave her. Leave her at the Crescent, book the suite indefinitely on my account, put room service and the ground-floor boutique on my card. When she was ready to come home, she would come home.

Then I asked him the question that actually mattered.

Tomorrow’s arrangement is ready?

Yes, Alpha. The Crescent is holding the rooftop. Fourteen courses. The Goldstein quartet confirmed. Light crew on the tower across the river, lit at nine forty-five. When we flip the display, it will spell ELENA in three colors over the skyline.

Flowers?

Three thousand white roses from the suite to the elevator. Driver standing by at eleven sharp.

Good.

I set the phone down.

Three thousand roses was excessive. The Goldstein quartet was excessive. A light show over the skyline of the east district was excessive. But Elena was a woman who had grown up in a one-bedroom walkup with a mother who balanced the water bill against the grocery bill, and she had never said a word when I took that away from her. She still washed out her own coffee cup every morning, although we had a housekeeper, because she could not stop behaving like a woman who cleaned up after herself. Every now and then I needed to show her what she had traded up for.

She would walk out of the Crescent tomorrow at eleven, she would see

three thousand roses, and she would remember who I was.

At nine the next morning, my assistant buzzed.

Sophia was in the lobby.

I nearly had her turned away. Today was not a Sophia day. Today was Elena’s birthday and I had laid my calendar flat for it.

Then I remembered that I was managing two problems, and only one of them was currently sitting in a hotel room.

“Send her up.”

She arrived in a cream wool coat that I assumed was another on-camera outfit. She sat across from my desk, laid her tablet in her lap, and said nothing about looking tired.

“I’ll make this quick, Alpha. The Vitalis team sent through the follow-up term sheet at seven this morning. I need you in the office to review before —”

“Not today, Sophia.”

Her eyes lifted.

“It is Elena’s birthday,” I said. “I am taking the whole day. Whatever the term sheet needs, it can wait until Monday.”

Something happened on her face. A small softening that looked genuine. I had watched her use that softening on three different journalists. I still could not entirely tell when it was real.

“Alpha,” she said. “That is so kind of you.”

“Elena has been through a great deal.”

“She has.”

“I intend for her to understand, by the end of this day, that she is the center of this family, regardless of any other arrangements.”

“Of course, Alpha.”

I looked down at the folder on my desk. Sophia’s hand settled on her belly. Briefly. Long enough to make sure I saw it.

“Alpha,” she said, softer now. “May I say something.”

“Go on.”

“I know my position has made Elena’s situation harder. I never wanted that. If you will allow me — I would like to help. Picking out a gift. Something feminine. Something that says I thought about you the whole day. I am a woman. I can steer you.”

I should have said no. She was carrying my child and should have been in bed.

But she sat across from my desk with that practiced expression of hers, and I understood, the way I understood most things, that this was Sophia knowing her place. Clearing a path. Investing in my marriage because my marriage was investment in the Pack.

She was a better partner than Elena had ever given her credit for.

“Get your coat,” I said.

—

The boutique on Dresden Avenue had held for me for an hour.

Sophia walked the counter slowly, pregnant belly turned toward the glass, lifting pieces into the light for the staff. The owner knew me by name. The two assistants smiled at her the way people smile at the wife of a man with money.

She stopped at a rose-gold pendant on a pale chain.

“Try that on,” I said.

“Alpha, I shouldn’t —”

“Try it on. I need to see it on skin.”

She unclipped her own plain chain, lifted her hair off her neck, and the assistant fastened the new one for her. It lay against her collarbone at the exact length I would have chosen for Elena. I nodded at the owner.

“I’ll take everything new in the case. The full current collection. Wrap each piece separately.”

“Alpha —”

“The one you have on too, Sophia. Consider it a thank-you. You have been generous with your time.”

She laughed a small surprised sound, and did not take the chain off.

“Alpha. You shouldn’t.”

“You have earned it.”

Reid’s message came in as we stepped back onto the street.

Rooftop locked in. Light crew on site. Restaurant cleared for one. You are ready, Alpha.

I forwarded the message to nobody. I put the phone back in my pocket.
Then I turned to say something about the afternoon schedule to Sophia and caught the tail end of a look on her face I did not have a category for.

It was gone before I could pin it down.

“Ready?” I said.

“Ready, Alpha.”