Casting Greta a look of challenge, Riley scooped up some pasta and put it on her plate. Her raven flapped her wings at the old bitch. Honestly, there had been a brief moment when Riley had thought of staying in her room—she wasn’t in the mood to spend time with a bunch of people she was a little pissed off with. But no way would she let Greta cause her to hide away in her room. Nuh-uh. And she was annoyed with herself for even considering it.
As Tao ate the rest of his BLT, he watched Riley closely. In between eating her pasta and chatting with Zac, she teased the kids and topped up their plates. She also seemed to be deliberately avoiding making eye contact with anyone else.
Knowing Greta, she’d most likely accused Riley of the same crime that Shirley had, just to hurt her. He sent the old woman a hard look. She didn’t look so superior now. In fact, she was watching Riley with a mixture of confusion and . . . no, that couldn’t be respect. If she’d thought that hurting Riley would make his little raven isolate herself, she was gravely underestimating her strength.
Draping his arm across Riley’s back, Tao rested his hand in the crook of her neck and used his thumb to rub her nape. She stilled beneath his hand. It was a subtle rejection, but it was a rejection all the same. A growl built in his chest—a noise that came from both man and wolf. He spoke low in her ear. “What’s wrong?”
“I told you, nothing.”
He nipped her ear at the lie and said quietly, “Our room, now.”
“I’m trying to eat here.” The problem for Riley was that every forkful tasted like rubber. Her emotions were too messed up, and her raven was still in a sour mood. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about what she’d learned, not sure she was ready to hear that just maybe there was some truth in Greta’s claim that Taryn was his first choice. “Have another sandwich or something.”
“Baby, you’re hurting and I hate it. It’s killing me. We’re going to our room so you can tell me why and I can fix it.” Cupping her elbow, he brought her to her feet. He knew she wanted to resist. He also knew she wouldn’t cause a scene in front of the kids.
Neither of them said a word as they made their way through the tunnels. Once they were in their bedroom, he folded his arms. “What did Greta say to you? I know she upset you somehow. Tell me.”
Riley sighed. “She brought up Wade. She said she wouldn’t be surprised if Shirley’s accusations were true. That’s not something I wasn’t expecting.”
“What else? Don’t play dumb, Riley. You tensed up when I touched you, like I’ve done something to hurt you. If I have, I want to know what it is.”
“You haven’t hurt me. Fine, okay, you have. I would just rather you had told me so that Greta couldn’t have sucker punched me with it.”
He mentally ran through the possibilities of what she could mean but came up blank. “Told you what?”
Riley folded her arms. “About the none-too-little matter of you asking Taryn to imprint with you.”
He closed his eyes. “Fuck.”
“I’m not naïve, I know you have a past and I accept that. I can accept this too, it’s just . . . why didn’t you tell me? You know what, we don’t need to talk about it. It’s your business. I would just rather have heard it from you, that’s all.”
He moved into her personal space. “You’re mine, I’m yours, which means my business is your business. You want to hear about it, I’ll tell you. But let me make it clear that Taryn is not an ex. If she had been, I would have mentioned that. But I never kissed her, never even touched her.”
Admittedly, Riley did feel a little better on hearing that. “Okay.”
“I did want to imprint with her back then. Leaving the pack would have been damn fucking hard to do, but it would have been harder if I hadn’t. When I was a kid, my mother had to deal with one of my dad’s ex-bed-buddies hanging around, causing trouble for her. It was hard for everyone. That’s part of the reason I resisted you. I didn’t want things to be awkward for you, me, your mate, or—if through some unlikely miracle I ever mated—mine.”
Before she asked why he thought it would be an unlikely miracle, he was speaking again.
“Even then, I knew I wouldn’t have been Taryn’s first choice, but I wanted her anyway. It wasn’t because I cared deeply for her, it was because she’s strong and would never have needed me. I could have held myself back from her, and there would have been no pressure to ‘complete’ her the way true mates are supposed to complete each other.”
Having been unprepared for that answer, she asked, “You fear the depth of commitment that comes with mating?”
“Two people completing each other doesn’t always work so well. My brother’s mate had these expectations of the perfect guy that he can never live up to, no matter what he does—how could anyone? She spends her days criticizing him, but that doesn’t stop her from relying on him, needing him, and leaning on him until she’s also weighing on him.”
And that was no doubt part of why he was so cynical about relationships, she thought. “Not all love is unequal and codependent.”
“No, it’s not. But the idea that I have a mate out there expecting me to be her fairy-tale prince scares the shit out of me. How could I ever complete anyone, Riley? I’m a total asshole. Abrasive, selfish, tactless. The list goes on.”
“You’re not an asshole, Tao. You can be an asshole when you feel like it, but you’re not an asshole.”
“Of course I am. My point is that I wanted her for all the wrong reasons. I realized that pretty quickly, and I stopped wanting her before she and Trey even had a mating bond. That’s the God’s honest truth.” He cupped her throat with both hands. “I honestly wasn’t keeping it a secret from you. I can understand that it’s definitely not a small thing to you, but it feels small to me because it wasn’t a key point in my life. It’s so far in the past I never even think about it, so it didn’t occur to me to tell you.” He pulled her to him, nuzzling her neck. “I’m sorry, baby. That’s the second time I’ve hurt you in the space of a week. It doesn’t seem fair that I’m making you miserable while you make me happy.”
“How do I make you happy?”