POV: Ivy

By the next night, Chloe and I were drinking tequila together.

She had been my best friend for two years, and the moment I called her from my apartment floor, she had dropped everything and shown up with three bottles of liquor. We spent two hours replaying the humiliating video of Dean and Sarah at the cafe until anger replaced most of my urge to cry.

By Friday, we had reached the stage where revenge sounded healthier than hiding.

"Fuck Dean," Chloe announced, slamming down her shot glass.

The nightclub music swallowed half her words, but I got the important part.

"Agreed."

I lifted my own shot.

She caught my wrist before I could drink it.

"Actually, no. You're done."

She pushed a glass of water toward me.

"Drink. I have a surprise."

That sentence should have scared me more than it did.

Suddenly, Chloe’s phone vibrated violently against the sticky bar.

She glared at the caller ID and let out a vicious groan.

"My mother. If I don't answer, she’ll send pack guards to drag me to a dress fitting for Sarah's stupid engagement party."

She grabbed her purse, leaning in with a conspiratorial grin.

"I booked you a gigolo."

I nearly sprayed water across her dress.

"You did what?"

"One gorgeous man. No feelings. No Dean. Emotional first aid."

"You are insane."

"Probably. But you're newly single, publicly humiliated, and I'm rich enough to make bad ideas happen quickly."

I laughed despite myself.

Chloe tapped her ringing phone.

"Dark crimson shirt. He should be here any minute. I have to take this outside before my mom ruins my night. Don’t leave this spot!"

She turned on her heel and vanished into the patio crowd.

I was still smiling when the club doors opened.

A tall man walked in wearing a dark crimson button-down.

My stomach flipped.

It was him.

The stranger from the cafe.

I slid off my stool.

He spotted me halfway across the room.

Recognition sharpened his face.

I stopped in front of him, pulled a folded fifty from my purse, and pressed it against his chest.

"Your tip. For being on time."

He looked down at the bill, then at me.

"What exactly do you think my job is?"

"You're not supposed to make me explain it."

His mouth twitched.

"How much have you had to drink?"

"Enough to know you're very bad at flirting with a paying customer."

Understanding finally reached his eyes.

He took the fifty, folded my fingers around it, and pushed my hand gently back toward me.

"Wrong guy, sweetheart."

"That's not what my best friend said."

"Where is this friend?"

I pointed vaguely toward the empty bar stool and the distant patio doors.

He looked past me, analyzing the empty space, then looked back at my face.

"You're getting water."

"Bossy for a gigolo."

That earned me a quiet laugh.

He guided me to a booth, but his hand stayed at my elbow rather than my waist.

He ordered water, fries, and coffee.

When I tried to complain, he ignored me.

"Eat."

"I don't take orders well."

"I've noticed."

For the next hour, he kept me in that booth.

We talked.

By the time the fries were gone and I had finished two glasses of water, the room had stopped tilting.

I watched his hand curl around his coffee cup.

"You really aren't the guy my friend hired."

"No."

"And you could have told me your name at any point."

"You didn't ask."

I leaned back.

"That's obnoxious."

"So was tipping me fifty dollars."

I laughed.

His eyes dropped to my mouth.

The air changed.

It was subtle at first.

A pause that lasted too long.

The low pull under my ribs tightened until sitting across from him felt harder than touching him would.

I stood.

He did too.

"Ivy." His voice had changed. "You were drinking earlier. If you're trying to forget your ex, don't use me to do it."

I swallowed.

That should have embarrassed me.

Instead, it steadied me.

"I'm not asking because I don't know what I'm doing."

His jaw tightened.

"Tell me tomorrow won't turn this into something I took from you."

I looked him straight in the eyes.

"Tomorrow I may regret my judgment," I said. "But I won't say you made the choice for me."

His hand came up, stopping just short of my cheek.

"And what are you choosing?"

I closed the last inch myself and kissed him.

He froze.

Then his restraint snapped.

His hand slid into my hair, and his mouth came down on mine with a hunger that made my knees weak.

Morning sunlight found me with my cheek against a warm chest.

Memory returned in bright, humiliating detail.

The stranger was asleep beside me.

My phone buzzed inside my purse.

Chloe.

I slipped into the bathroom before answering.

"Where the hell did you go?" she demanded.

"You know where I went."

"No, I don't! I finally escaped my mother’s phone call, came back inside, and you were gone."

I lowered my voice. "I left with the man you hired."

Silence.

"Ivy. The man I hired wore a blue polo."

My hand tightened around the phone.

"No. You said crimson."

"I said his agency profile had a crimson background! His message said blue polo. I just spent the last hour apologizing to a guy sitting alone at the bar."

I stared at myself in the mirror.

My face went cold.

"Who did you leave with?" Chloe asked.

I looked at the locked bathroom door.

"I have no idea."

I ended the call, dressed as quietly as I could, and escaped before the stranger woke.

I spent the rest of the day hiding in my apartment, trying to convince myself the entire night could stay filed under Terrible Decisions I Will Never Repeat.

But in a powerful pack, scandals don't get time to breathe.

The cafe video had already reached the elders. By noon, Dean and Sarah's families were in full damage-control mode. They treated Dean's infidelity not as a dealbreaker, but as a minor PR crisis. The engagement was moving forward, and tonight's scheduled engagement party would proceed exactly as planned to contain the public fallout.

Chloe’s mother—the Vale Luna—was ruthless about pack politics. She ordered Chloe to attend and execute a flawless performance of a supportive ally to Sarah's family.

Chloe refused to go without me.

She showed up at my apartment with a dress, a pair of heels, and an absolute refusal to take no for an answer.

Which was how, by that evening, Chloe dragged me into the grand foyer of the country club for the engagement party I had every reason to avoid.

She called it my public execution of Dean's reputation—showing up looking flawless instead of hiding like a victim.

"There is one person you still haven't met," she said as we crossed the marble floor. "My stepbrother got back into town this week."

I barely listened.

"He's over there."

I looked up.

A man stood at the foot of the grand staircase with a bourbon in one hand.

Black suit.

Dark hair.

A face I had kissed less than twenty-four hours ago.

Pine and storm rolled across the room.

My lungs forgot how to work.

Chloe smiled.

"Ivy, meet Ace."

POV: Ivy

For several seconds, I forgot there were other people in the country club.

Ace stood at the bottom of the staircase, looking far too composed for a man who had woken up that morning in a hotel bed without the woman he'd slept with.

His gaze settled on me.

Recognition warmed it.

So did amusement.

"It's nice to meet you, Ivy."

The bastard.

"You too," I managed.

Chloe didn't notice the tension. She was busy accepting champagne from a waiter while her mother fielded questions from pack elders about Sarah and Dean's engagement—assuring everyone that the alliance was strong and the scandal was merely a "misunderstanding."

That word had been used at least twelve times tonight.

Misunderstanding.

As if Dean's six-month double life were a simple scheduling conflict.

I caught Ace's eye and tipped my head toward a side corridor.

He raised one brow.

I walked away before he could refuse.

The hallway behind the ballroom was dim and quiet, lined with oil paintings of dead Vale ancestors who looked judgmental enough to belong in the room we had just left.

I paced once.

Twice.

The door opened.

Ace stepped inside and let it close behind him.

He leaned against the wall.

"You ran out before breakfast."

"We need to forget last night."

His expression changed.

Not dramatically. Ace didn't seem like a man who wasted emotion where other people could see it.

But the faint amusement disappeared.

"Why?"

"Because it was a mistake."

He went still.

I pushed on before I lost my nerve.

"I am currently the center of a massive pack scandal. Chloe stuck her neck out to bring me here tonight. If people find out I slept with her stepbrother—the future Alpha of the Vale Pack—they won't just call me a homewrecker. They'll call me a climber, and they'll drag Chloe's family into my mess."

Ace's jaw tightened.

"Dean lied to you. Stop carrying his shame."

"This isn't about Dean."

"No?"

"It's about me not becoming the woman who blows up Chloe's reputation by association."

Ace pushed off the wall.

He came closer, stopping before his body touched mine.

"Sleeping with me didn't betray Chloe."

"You don't know that."

"I know exactly that."

The certainty in his voice irritated me.

"You are her stepbrother."

"We met as adults."

"That is not the point."

"Then tell me the point."

I folded my arms to keep from reaching for him.

His scent was worse in a narrow hallway. Pine, rain, something warm beneath it that made my Omega pace under my skin.

"The point is that last night cannot happen again."

Ace's eyes dropped briefly to my mouth.

"Was it a mistake before you learned my name?"

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

I remembered the booth. The water. The way he made me say what I wanted before he touched me. The way he kept asking until I was sober enough to be certain.

I remembered wanting him without knowing anything except the shape of his mouth and the way my body quieted when he looked at me.

No.

It had not felt like a mistake.

That was exactly why I was terrified.

Ace read the answer on my face.

"That's what I thought."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act like because I wanted you once, I owe you an encore."

His eyes hardened.

"I never said you owed me anything."

The rebuke was quiet, and I felt it immediately.

He was right.

Whatever else this was, Ace had been more careful with my choices than anyone else in my life that week.

I looked away.

"I still need this to stop."

He watched me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

"Fine."

The easy agreement hurt more than I expected.

He opened the door.

"Ace."

He looked back.

I had no idea what I meant to say.

Sorry?

Thank you?

Please don't actually forget?

All three were terrible options.

He waited.

I said nothing.

His mouth flattened, and he walked back into the ballroom.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes.

My pulse took far too long to settle.

"There you are."

I jumped.

Chloe rounded the corner holding two glasses of champagne.

For one sick second, I was sure she had seen him leave.

"I thought you got lost looking for the restroom," she said.

"Just needed quiet."

She handed me a glass and leaned against the wall beside me.

I studied her profile.

Her makeup was perfect, but exhaustion sat underneath it. She had spent hours pretending to support a political alliance she despised, while her mother paraded her in front of eligible Alphas to prove the Vale family wasn't tainted by the scandal.

"Can I tell you something awful?" she asked.

My stomach tightened.

"Always."

She stared toward the ballroom doors.

"I'm in love with Ace."

The stem of my champagne flute almost slipped between my fingers.

"What?"

"Ace." Her voice dropped. "I've been in love with him for three years."

My skin went cold.

"Chloe, he's your brother."

"Stepbrother," she corrected. "And before you say it, no, we didn't grow up together. My mom married his dad after I was already in college. We met as adults."

She gave a miserable little laugh.

"I know how it sounds. That's why I never did anything about it. The elders would turn it into a scandal. My mother would lose her mind. His father would act like I had tried to burn down the family name."

I couldn't seem to get enough air.

"Does Ace know?"

"God, no."

That answer should have relieved me.

It didn't.

Chloe stared into her champagne.

"That's why I hate watching Sarah cling to Dean," she whispered. "Our families want us to make perfect alliances. My mother keeps saying I need to learn from Sarah's 'grace' and find my own Alpha to marry. I figured if I just kept my mouth shut and committed to a life that made sense, I'd get over the one thing I couldn't have."

She swallowed.

"But watching Sarah swallow his cheating just to keep the ring... it makes me sick. Everyone has a solution for how she should fix it, except the obvious one."

"Which is?"

"To admit she doesn't actually want him."

The honesty in her voice broke something open in me.

Chloe was being pressured, suffocated, and asked to preserve everyone else's comfort while burying her own feelings.

I knew exactly what that felt like.

She set down her drink and rested her head on my shoulder.

"You're the only person I've told about Ace."

Guilt hit so hard my knees weakened.

"Please don't think I'm disgusting," she whispered.

I wrapped my arms around her.

"I don't."

That part was true.

The lie was everything I didn't say next.

I didn't tell her that the man she had loved in silence for three years had spent the previous night in my bed.

I didn't tell her that I could still feel his mouth on mine.

And when she held me tighter, trusting me with the secret she had never told another person, I understood exactly why Ace had looked angry when I called last night a mistake.

I wasn't trying to protect Chloe from something that had already happened.

I was trying to protect myself from what telling her would cost me.

That realization followed me back into the ballroom.

So did one more.

If I wanted to keep my best friend, Ace could never happen again.

POV: Ace

Forget last night.

I made it back to the ballroom before the words stopped burning.

Ivy had looked me in the face and called the first night I had spent with her a mistake.

She had no idea I had been waiting five years for the chance to hear her say my name.

That was the problem.

She didn't remember me.

Five years earlier, at Moon Camp, I was eighteen and sick of being watched like the future Alpha every second of the day. I had slipped away from the bonfire and taken the boundary trail alone.

Halfway to the river, I heard someone scream.

By the time I reached the bank, a girl was already in the water.

Sixteen, maybe. Small. Dark hair plastered across her face as the current rolled her under.

I didn't think.

I jumped.

The river was snowmelt cold and strong enough to drag both of us downstream. I caught the back of her jacket on the second try and fought toward the bank. A submerged branch tore my wrist open when I shoved her ahead of me.

I barely felt it.

She was coughing by the time I pulled her onto the mud.

Alive.

That was all that mattered.

Then her scent reached me.

Faint under river water and fear.

Vanilla. Wildflowers. Something that made my wolf slam against my ribs so hard I nearly shifted on top of her.

Mate.

The word landed with the certainty of instinct.

She was sixteen.

Terrified.

Half-conscious.

So I did the only decent thing I could do.

I wrapped her in my coat, carried her to the medics, and kept my mouth shut.

By morning, her family had taken her home.

I went to Marcus before breakfast.

"Who was the girl from the river?"

He told me her name.

Ivy.

A week later, I left for Alpha training in the Northern Pack.

I told myself distance would help.

It didn't.

Chloe made it worse without knowing.

She mentioned Ivy in calls home. Ivy hated statistics. Ivy had made the dean's list. Ivy had broken her wrist sophomore year. Ivy was applying for a competitive seminar. Tiny facts that should have meant nothing became markers I stored away.

I never contacted her.

She was building a life. I wasn't going to walk into it waving fate like a legal document.

Then Chloe mentioned Dean.

I hated him before I met him.

When I walked into the campus cafe and saw him letting a room full of people call Ivy a homewrecker to protect himself, I came close to losing control.

Claiming she was my girlfriend had been strategy.

It had also been the easiest lie I had ever told.

Then came the nightclub.

She had shoved fifty dollars against my chest, looked at me with tequila-bright eyes, and called me a gigolo.

I should have been offended.

I almost laughed.

I kept her at that booth until she was sober enough to know exactly what she was doing. I gave her every chance to walk away.

She chose me anyway.

That was what had wrecked me.

Not the sex.

The choice.

For a few hours, I let myself believe her wolf had finally caught up with mine.

Then I woke to an empty bed.

And tonight she had told me to erase it.

I picked up a bourbon from a passing tray and forced my shoulders to loosen.

Cornering her would only make her run harder.

I knew enough about frightened wolves to understand that.

Across the ballroom, Chloe stood with her mother and two elders. Dean hovered several yards away looking like a man waiting for permission to approach his own execution.

The engagement wasn't settled.

Sarah had taken off the ring, but her family and Dean's had already begun using words like misunderstanding, repair, obligation, alliance.

Politics could resurrect relationships that should have stayed dead.

I walked over to Chloe.

"You surviving?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Ask me after Mom finishes explaining why public cheating is apparently less embarrassing than a canceled wedding."

"Sarah can still say no."

"I know. I wish she'd believe that."

She sounded tired enough to mean it.

I wanted to ask where Ivy had gone.

I didn't.

Instead, I said, "You're still going on the family Moon trip next week?"

"Apparently canceling would signal instability to the elders." Chloe made air quotes. "God forbid anyone think our family has feelings."

Normally, I avoided those trips on principle.

This year, I changed my mind.

"I'll go."

Chloe stared at me. "You told Marcus you'd rather chew glass."

"People evolve."

"You don't."

I ignored that.

"Bring Ivy."

Her suspicion sharpened for half a second.

"Why?"

I kept my face neutral.

"Because she's dealing with the same mess you are. She shouldn't spend four days alone while half the university tears her apart online."

Chloe's expression softened.

Good.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea."

"I have those occasionally."

"Rarely enough that I should document this one."

She walked away to find Ivy.

I took my bourbon out to the balcony.

Cold air hit my face.

I called Ryder.

He answered on the third ring. Pool balls cracked together in the background.

"Tell me you're calling because you finally escaped the engagement-party funeral."

"Clear next week."

"No."

"Moon Camp."

"Absolutely not."

"Bring Elias."

Ryder went quiet.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

"That answer worked better before you left for five years and came back thinking you're charming."

I looked through the glass doors.

Ivy had returned to the ballroom.

She stood beside Chloe with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"There's someone I want you to meet," I said.

Ryder made a sound of interest.

"A woman?"

"Don't make me regret calling."

"Too late. Elias is here. You're on speaker."

A calmer voice joined the line.

"If this is about Moon Camp, no."

"Both of you are coming."

Ryder laughed. "Now I definitely want to know who she is."

I hung up.

At the time, inviting my two closest friends seemed smart. Ryder could occupy the security teams. Elias could keep the elders from trying to turn every meal into a political meeting. Their presence would make the trip feel casual.

Most importantly, Ivy would have fewer reasons to suspect I had agreed to attend because of her.

I looked through the doors again.

She glanced up.

Our eyes met across the ballroom.

Her expression tightened before she looked away.

Four days in the mountains wouldn't fix five years of distance.

But it would give me time.

I slipped my phone back into my pocket.

What I didn't know was that I had just invited the only two men in the pack capable of becoming a real problem for me.