“Pardon?” I asked.

“You. Are. Hot,” Krystal stated, answering my question to Lexie. “That sultry, don’t-give-a-damn, I-don’t-need-a-man, exotic kind of hot.”

Another blink then, “I am?”

“Babe, totally. This is why I’m concerned. You lose that edge, you’re screwed,” Krystal answered.

It was then I found my mouth sharing (and I didn’t know why), “I think last night I told him in the middle of a rant that I was lonely.”

“Oh f**k,” Krystal muttered.

“You’re lonely?” Zara asked, her warm brown eyes holding a hint of concern.

“Well, I got sick a while ago, like really sick, hospitalized sick.” I watched all the women get concerned looks so I went on quickly, “I’m okay. Totally fine. It’s all good but it wasn’t fun to do that alone.”

“I’ll bet,” Lauren murmured.

“Being sick alone is awful,” Nina declared and grinned. “Being sick around an alpha is a lot less awful.”

I found this comment intriguing.

She and Max had been together a while so it was likely she’d at least gotten a cold or something, so she would know. But Max didn’t strike me as a care-for-his-sick-wife-with-kindness-and-adoration kind of guy. He struck me as a she’ll-get-over-it-I’m-going-to-go-chop-down-some-trees-for-firewood kind of guy.

“Glad you’re better,” Faye said quietly. “But sorry you were sick.”

“Yeah, that sucks,” Lexie agreed.

“I’m okay now,” I assured them.

“We can see that, anyone can see that,” Krystal said, eyes moving the length of me in my armchair then coming back to mine. “Does Deck know you were sick?”

I nodded.

“And does he know you didn’t like to go that alone?” she asked.

I nodded again.

She sat back, muttering, “Not sure what to do with that.”

It was at this point I was beginning to think this conversation was all kinds of weird.

“I couldn’t exactly keep it from him. I was sick for a year and we’re starting a relationship,” I told her.

“A year?” Zara asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Bummer,” Zara replied.

“It’s all good now,” I stated.

“Krys,” Lauren called, and Krystal looked at her. “I don’t get where you’re going with this. It’s not like you aren’t sitting in a room full of women who are hooked to badasses who are doing a little bit of a whole lot of all right.”

I was glad to know Lauren thought this was weird too.

“Yeah, I know,” Krystal returned. “But, A, it took some head butting, a lot of bullshit and a f**kload of emotion to get you here. And B, no offense, Laurie, but Emme here,” she flung a hand out to me, “is different.”

“She is?” Lexie asked at the same time I asked, “I am?”

Krystal looked at me, her face was normally a hint hard but I saw her eyes were now soft.

She was very, very pretty.

With that look in her eyes, she was a knockout.

“Babe,” she said quietly, “Deck is a good guy. I can’t say I know him all that well, but I know he’d do anything for Chace and Faye and he’s proved that. A man can be a good friend, the best kind of good friend there is, that means he’s a good man. But you aren’t like normal women and I’ve seen a lot of women and the kind I like best is your kind. You got a life. You got a mission, this house. You got your world and your way of doin’ things. And a man like Deck can come into that life and make it all about him just by bein’ Deck. He wouldn’t do it intentionally. With the force of his personality, he’d just do it.”

I didn’t know how she figured that all out about me.

Maybe she had awesome mental powers like Jacob.

She leaned over the side of the couch she was sitting by and into me before she continued.

“He’s into you and, just sayin’, he’s into you because of all that you got goin’ on. Don’t lose that because of who he is, how he is, or that he can give it to you like you like it. Don’t lose it for you. And don’t lose it because, you do, you might lose him.”

Fear gripped my insides as my mind reeled back wondering if, even at this early juncture, that was already happening.

“Krys, you’re freaking her out,” Faye murmured.

She totally was.

“Good,” Krystal stated as she sat back. “She’ll have a mind to all this and not let it happen.”

“You’ll be fine. Deck will be fine. Krys is just a little cynical,” Lauren told me. “Don’t worry, Emme.”

Too late. I was worried.

So worried, I was immensely relieved when I heard my cell phone ring in the kitchen and that meant I had an excuse to mumble my apologies and hurry out of the room.

Unfortunately, I was so intent on taking the call I took it even though the display said “Unidentified Number.”

“Hello?”

“Em.”

Oh no. It was Dane.

I said nothing.

“I… Em… do you know where I am?”

“I know where you are,” I whispered.

“I figured you did. They said they have your ring.”

My ring?

It wasn’t my ring. I didn’t even want it to be my ring when I didn’t know it was a stolen ring. But it being a stolen ring, it was never my ring.

I again said nothing but I did start fuming.

He said something.

“This is my one call. I’ve been waiting to make it so I didn’t wake you or something. I… things aren’t good and I f**ked up with that ring. I f**ked up with a lot. I know you’re probably freaked but I need to talk to you. Babe, please, can you come down to the station? I can have visitors.”

He wanted me to come to the police station where he was incarcerated and have a chat?

Was he insane?

“Today, I was going to break up with you,” I informed him.

“Shit,” he whispered.

He knew it.

He didn’t like it.

And, I guessed, if he wasn’t currently residing in lockup, he would have tried to talk me out of it.

“So, no. I can’t come down to the station because we were done and now we are so totally done, we’ve redefined the word done.”

“Em, this is f**ked up. They don’t have it right. I mean they do, parts of it, but other parts—”