Page 23 of Holly Jolly Heat
"Do you?" Michelle looked between us. "Because pack bonds with clients are seen as conflicts of interest in my industry. If word gets out before I've figured out how to handle it, I could lose clients. Lose credibility. Everything I've worked for could crumble."
"Then we make sure it doesn't," Dex said firmly. "We're careful. We keep personal and professional separate until you're ready to go public. If you ever are."
"And if I'm never ready?"
The question hung in the air.
I looked at Ro and Dex. We'd discussed this scenario. The possibility that Michelle might choose her career over the pack bond. That she might decide we were too much risk.
"Then we respect that," Ro said, though I could hear the pain in his voice. "We'll maintain professional distance. We won't make your life harder."
"But," I added, because I had to, "we're not giving up on you. On us. We'll wait. However long it takes. If you need a year to figure out the professional side, we'll wait. If you need five years, we'll wait. Because you're our omega, Michelle. That doesn't go away just because it's inconvenient."
Michelle's eyes were bright, and I could smell the shift in her scent, less sharp, more sweet. Less panic, more possibility.
"I don't want to hurt you," she said quietly. "Any of you. But I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be someone's omega and still be myself."
"Then we figure it out together," Ro said. "We make our own rules. Pack bonds don't have a manual. We write our own. We know that just as well as you do. Callie is a client of yours, right? We watched that unfold and were rooting for her the whole way."
Michelle’s face registered surprise for a moment before she schooled it once more. "I'm not a traditional omega," she warned. "I'm not going to be soft and submissive and defer to my alphas. I'm going to argue and push back and probably be difficult."
"Good," Dex said simply. "We don't want traditional. We want you."
"I don't know how to nest. I've never nested."
"We'll learn together," I said, though my heart broke slightly at the way she’d been denying herself something so instinctual.
"I'm going to keep working. Probably too much. I'm not going to suddenly become domestic and focused on pack to the exclusion of everything else."
"We don't expect you to," Ro assured her. "We like that you're ambitious. It's part of who you are."
Michelle looked at us, really looked at us, like she was trying to find the trap, the catch, the place where we'd reveal we actually wanted her to be something she wasn't.
"You really mean that," she said finally. "You actually want me. The whole package. Career obsession and stress-baking and inability to relax."
"We want you," I confirmed. "Exactly as you are. The woman who built a business from nothing. The woman who fights for her clients like they're pack. The woman who runs when she's scared but comes back because she's brave."
"I'm not brave," Michelle whispered.
"You invited us here," Dex said. "That's brave."
She was quiet for a long moment, and I could see her processing. Her analytical mind working through scenarios, calculating risks, trying to find the logical path through an inherently illogical situation.
Finally, she said, "I need time. To figure out how to make this work without destroying my career. To get to know you outside of professional contexts. To see if the pack actually fits with who I am."
"How much time?" I asked.
"I don't know. Weeks? Months? I don't have a timeline."
"That's okay," Ro said. "We're patient."
"Are you though?" Michelle looked at me. "You're a golden retriever in human form, Lucas. Patient isn't exactly your defining trait."
I grinned despite the seriousness of the conversation. "I can learn. For you."
"And while I'm figuring things out, we maintain professional boundaries? No claiming, no marking, no public pack behavior?"
It would be torture. Absolute torture. But?—
