Chapter 9—Intimate Devotion

Celeste's POV

Vaelina was still looking at me with that expression, the one that said she was not going to let this go quietly.

"I don't want people pitying me," I said. "That's the honest answer. I don't want to walk into this office every morning and have people looking at me like I'm the rejected Luna who got humiliated in front of her own pack. I worked hard to get here. I want people to see that first."

Vaelina opened her mouth.

"I know what you're going to say," I said.

"Do you?"

"You're going to say the Wood twins accepted me and I need to get over it."

She pointed at me. "Word for word."

"I am over it."

She leaned back in her chair and gave me a look so flat it could have been ironed. "Celeste."

"I am."

"You are a terrible liar and I say that with so much love." She smiled. "You cannot fool someone who actually knows you. I watched you freeze at the sight of two names on a piece of paper. That is not over it."

"It was a surprise. That's different from not being over it."

"Sure it is." She stood up and smoothed her blazer. "You're over it the same way I'm over my ex. Completely fine until he walks into the room."

"Vaelina."

"I'm going, I'm going." She held her hands up and backed toward the door, still smiling. "Focus on your work. Be a professional. I'll see you at lunch."

"Goodbye."

"Over it," she muttered, and pulled the door shut behind her.

I stared at the closed door for exactly two seconds and then made a decision. Then I turned back to my desk, opened the first client file and got to work.

Whatever I felt about those names on that page was not something I was going to spend a single more minute on today. I was at work. Accounts to manage, a briefing at eleven and a client call at three. That was what mattered right now and that was where my head needed to be.

By five o'clock I cleared everything on my desk and sent two reports ahead of their deadlines. Whatever the morning threw at me, the afternoon more than made up for it.

***

The house was warm when I got back, the kind of warm that meant someone was in and the evening was already underway.

Mason appeared from the hallway the moment I pushed the door open, sleeves rolled up, looking like a man who was entirely too comfortable and entirely too good looking at the end of a Tuesday.

"How was your day?" He took my bag from my shoulder before I could set it down.

"Stressful," I said. "The usual kind but with extra paperwork."

Jason came out behind him. "Food's ready when you are."

"Thank you." I started toward the stairs and then stopped because there was someone else standing in the hallway, a woman I did not recognise, neat and composed and waiting with her hands clasped in front of her.

"This is Neris," Mason said. "She'll be handling your personal affairs going forward. Whatever you need."

Neris smiled warmly and dipped her head. "It's a pleasure to serve you, Luna."

Something about hearing that title in this house still caught me off guard in the best way every single time. I smiled at her. "It's lovely to meet you, Neris. Please just call me Celeste."

"Eat first," Jason said, steering me gently toward the dining room with a hand at my back. "Shower after. Then come find us."

"Come find you where?"

He smiled. "Our room."

I looked at him. He looked back like it was the most casual thing he ever said in his life, which it absolutely was not.

I ate, which took more willpower than it should have because my brain was already somewhere down the hall, and when I was done I pushed back from the table and went upstairs.

Neris was already in my room, which I was starting to understand was going to be her natural habitat. Towels out, something that smelled expensive on the vanity and an air about her that said she was very good at her job.

I sat on the edge of the bed after my shower, wrapped in a towel, staring at the wardrobe.

"I need something that looks," I paused, trying to find the professional version of what I was trying to say. "Attractive. For their room."

Neris did not even blink. She went straight to the wardrobe, pushed past three sections and pulled out a set of lingerie in a deep burgundy that I forgot I owned.

"This," she said simply.

"That's," I looked at it. "Yes. That's the one."

She helped me get ready with a quiet, no-nonsense efficiency that made me like her immediately and completely. We talked while she worked, easy conversation, the kind that came naturally with someone who was not trying to perform anything.

"Is this your first time with them?" she asked, pinning my hair back loosely. She said it the way you asked someone if they been to a restaurant before, completely without ceremony.

I rolled my eyes. "No. It is not."

She smiled. "You look nervous."

"I'm not nervous."

"Your hands are doing that thing."

I looked down at my hands and put them flat on my knees. "I still get shy around them sometimes. That is not the same as nervous."

Neris laughed, warm and genuine, and I laughed too because honestly it was a little funny.

"You are their Luna," she said, handing me my robe. "They are very much yours."

"I know that."

"Then walk in there like you know you are."

I stood up, looked at myself in the mirror for a moment and decided she was right.

I tied the robe, walked down the hall to their bedroom and knocked twice.

"Come in." Mason's voice, low and even.

My heart picked up speed anyway, which was embarrassing considering that Neris was one hundred percent correct that this was absolutely not my first time.

I reached out, wrapped my fingers around the cool metal of the handle and turned it, pushing the door open to step inside.