Chapter 54 — What He Can Offer

Grant had spent enough years watching negotiations to know when interest changed shape.

It was not in the young Alpha’s posture. Nothing so obvious.

It was in the way he listened to Hallie.

When she spoke, he did not glance toward Grant to see whether the answer had authority behind it. He followed her reasoning. Asked the next question from where she had left the conversation instead of forcing her to rebuild the point from the beginning.

Grant did not need to feel anything from him to understand what that meant. He had eyes. The young Alpha leaned over the revised page they had just agreed could serve as a starting procedure.

“If this contact changes halfway through a matter,” he said, “how do you keep the handoff from becoming another delay?”

Hallie answered before Grant did.

“You make the outgoing contact responsible for identifying the next one unless they’re unavailable. If they are, the question goes back to whoever owns that part of the work.”

The Alpha nodded.

“And if that person refuses responsibility?”

“Then Cedar Draw has a different problem.”

A brief smile crossed the other man’s face.

“Fair.”

Grant watched Hallie see it. Not react to it. See it.

There was a difference. The negotiation continued.

The young Alpha asked practical questions. Hallie separated what belonged to the agreement from what belonged to Cedar Draw’s internal choices. When she pushed back, he listened instead of treating resistance like insult.

Grant could understand why that would matter to her. He also understood something he disliked more. The man was easy for the rest of the world to read.

Young. Recognized. Controlled. An Alpha from a pack with structures everyone already knew how to respect.

Hallie would not have to explain why sitting beside him made sense. No one would ask what authority she carried. No one would look at her and wonder whether a woman trained to become a Luna had somehow failed because she was not one.

Beside a man like this, she could have status before she earned anyone’s trust. Legitimacy before she opened her mouth. A role shaped to fit the skills Bellamy Creek had spent years putting into her hands.

Cedar Draw had given her none of that. Grant had given her none of that. He had refused to.

Until now, he had been proud of the distinction without having to examine its cost. The young Alpha asked Hallie another question. She leaned closer to the page.

Grant felt the small pull in himself before he named it. Jealousy.

Clear. Undeniable.

Not anger at Hallie. Not anger at the man for recognizing what was in front of him.

Grant almost preferred either of those. They would have been simpler.

Instead, jealousy sat under his ribs because another man could offer Hallie things Grant could not give her without changing the place she had chosen to help build. That did not make the other Alpha wrong for having them. It did not make Hallie wrong if she noticed.

Grant stood and moved toward the table under the ordinary excuse of reading the amended language. Close enough. Hallie’s emotions reached him in the way they only did at short distance.

Curiosity. Attention. Ease.

The last one cut deepest.

Nothing sharp. No alarm. No pressure. None of the strain that often appeared when Hallie had to explain Cedar Draw to someone who wanted it to make sense in familiar terms.

She was comfortable. Grant’s jaw tightened. With sudden, unwelcome clarity, he wanted to put a hand at Hallie’s back and make the marriage visible before the other Alpha looked at her again.

The want embarrassed him less than what using it would mean. It was his reaction, not evidence about hers.

He could have stayed close and searched the emotions reaching him for some proof of what Hallie wanted. He refused to turn what he sensed into testimony.

Grant stepped back. The young Alpha glanced at him, then returned to Hallie’s explanation without hesitation. That, too, was information.

The man was not baiting him. He was not performing interest to provoke a husband. He simply liked listening to Hallie.

Grant knew because he did too. The thought almost made him laugh. Instead, he folded his arms and let the conversation continue.

Hallie challenged one phrase in the draft. The Alpha changed it. She offered a narrower alternative.

He asked what it protected. She told him. He considered the answer seriously.

Grant stayed out of it. His silence did not feel noble. It felt necessary.

If Hallie wanted the easier social fit represented across the table, Grant’s rank could not make that wanting disappear. If she did not, his interference would insult her for no reason. Either way, the choice had to remain hers.

The young Alpha set his pen down.

“We should stop there for today.”

Hallie nodded. “That gives both sides something specific to review.”

“I agree.”

His gaze remained on her one beat longer than the sentence required. Grant saw it. So did Hallie.

Grant could not tell what she made of it. For once, he was grateful he could not. The Alpha gathered his papers and left the revised page on the table for Cedar Draw.

Grant looked at Hallie and felt the jealousy remain. He was her husband.

That still did not make him automatically the life that fit her best.

Across the table, Hallie read one line again. Grant could not tell what she made of the other Alpha’s interest.

For once, he did not try to know.