Chapter 7: Her Own Dress

"I'm not going," I said.

I held the card out at arm's length and did not open it again.

Darek shrugged and sat on the edge of my desk.

"She wants you in the back row," he said. "So she's chosen the place she expects you to be."

"That's a reason to stay home."

"It's a reason to go sit in the front."

I looked at him.

"On my arm," he said. "As the Gamma of Ironwood, in a dress you picked. Nobody carries your things in. Nobody tells you where to stand."

"And what do you get out of it?"

"A good seat," Darek said. "I've been watching that woman for three weeks and I'd like to see how it ends."

I laughed before I could stop myself.

It was the first real laugh I'd had in a month.

"Bess," I called. "Do we have a dress?"

"I have been waiting for you to ask," Bess said from the doorway, with pins in her mouth.

She had already made it.

She had bought the fabric in town the day we arrived and sewn the seams every night by the kitchen lamp.

It was deep green silk, high at the neck and open down the back to my waist.

"I can't wear that," I said.

"It fits you," Bess said. "I measured you in your sleep."

I put it on behind the screen in the corner of my office.

When I came out, Darek was standing at the window with his back to me.

He turned around and stopped.

He did not say anything for a long moment.

His throat moved.

"That works," he said, and his voice came out rough.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Alpha's Regret: Losing His True Mate from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.