The Alpha Imposter Wife

Chapter 23: Breakfast With The Enemy

NORA POV

“I hope everyone slept well after all that excitement”

Warren said it with a warm smile, reaching for the coffee pot like he owned the table.

“It was nothing” Rhett said. “Equipment issue. Already sorted.”

“Of course.” Warren poured his coffee and set the pot down. “Still, alarms in the night are never pleasant. Especially for guests who don’t know the grounds.”

“We apologise for the disruption” I said. Warm voice. Easy face. “It won’t happen again.”

Warren looked at me. “Not at all, Luna. These things happen.”

He smiled.

I smiled back.

We both knew exactly what we were doing.

The dining room was full. Rhett at the head of the table, Warren to his right, Petra two seats down. Pack members filling the rest of the chairs, the normal breakfast rotation, everything looking exactly like a regular morning.

It was not a regular morning.

I sat at my usual spot and ate and kept my voice light and my expression easy and the whole time my brain was running calculations behind my face like a second machine running underneath the first one.

Bex was two seats down from me. She had appeared at the table this morning looking like she had not slept much either and she caught my eye when I sat down and gave me the smallest nod. I’m here. I see it. You’re not alone in this room.

That was all. But it helped.

Warren was good at breakfast. That was the truth of it. He was funny when he needed to be, asked the right questions, remembered small details from the night before and brought them back up in ways that made people feel noticed. Half the pack members at the table probably thought he was charming by the time the food was served.

I watched it happen and kept my face open and attentive and thought about his scout in the trees with a long lens camera.

“That alarm last night” he said, directing it at Rhett but his voice carrying to the whole table. “It must be quite a system you have. It woke me from a dead sleep.”

“Sensitive sensors on the east perimeter” Rhett said. “Calibration issue. Conrad handled it.”

“Good man, Conrad.” Warren nodded. “You’re lucky to have him.”

“I know.”

Warren picked up his fork. Completely casual. “It must be hard, though. With your Beta out. Running all the extra coordination on top of everything.”

The table didn’t visibly react. But I felt it. The small shift in the air. One or two pack members looking down at their plates.

Rhett’s face stayed level. “We manage.”

“Of course you do.” Warren smiled. Still warm. Still easy. “Blackwood is a strong pack.”

He looked at me then. Just for a second, while Rhett was reaching for his coffee. A quick clean look that did not match his smile at all. Not hostile. Not warm. Just assessing. The look of a man checking whether something he already knows is visible on a face he is watching.

I held his gaze.

Gave him nothing.

He looked away.

Under the table Bex’s hand touched mine. Quick. Light. She was looking at her plate when I glanced sideways at her and she didn’t say anything. Just that small touch. I felt something loosen in my chest slightly.

I picked up my glass and kept going.

Breakfast wound down the way breakfasts did. Conversation thinning. People finishing and excusing themselves. The table slowly emptying.

I was folding my napkin when Warren spoke.

“Alpha Blackwood.” He said it across the table, unhurried. “I was hoping we might have a few minutes this morning. To discuss the boundary matter before we head out. Privately, if that works.”

“Of course” Rhett said.

He stood. Warren stood. They moved toward the corridor together.

Petra stayed seated. She was finishing her tea with both hands wrapped around the cup and when the men left the room her eyes came to me. Just rested there. Calm and unreadable.

I smiled at her. “More tea?”

“I’m fine” she said. “Thank you.”

She held my eyes for just a second longer than needed. Then she looked back at her cup.

I pushed my chair back and walked out of the dining room.

The corridor was empty. The study door was at the far end, solid wood, already closed. I could hear nothing through it. Not even the shape of voices.

I stood there.

Rhett and Warren. Alone in that room. No Conrad, no pack witnesses, just the two of them and whatever Warren had decided he wanted to put on the table this morning.

The scout’s equipment was Ironridge. Rhett knew that. Did Warren know that Rhett knew? Was he in that room right now gambling that he didn’t?

Or was he in there because he had something solid, something from that long lens camera, and he was ready to open with it?

My hand was at my side and I pressed my fingers flat against my leg.

Trust him.

That was the logical thing. Rhett had been managing this pack for years before I even walked through the front door. He knew Warren. He had been watching this situation build for longer than I had. He had already said they were doing this together and meant it.

But together meant I was in the room.

Together did not mean I was standing in a corridor listening to nothing while Warren said whatever he had come here to say.

I looked at the study door.

Bex appeared beside me from the dining room. She stopped when she saw my face.

“Don’t” she said.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You have your listening-at-doors face.”

“I don’t have a listening-at-doors face.”

“You do.” She crossed her arms. “You’ve had it since breakfast.” She looked at the door and then back at me. “He’s got it. Whatever Warren throws in there, Rhett’s got it.”

“You don’t know what Warren has.”

“Neither do you.” She kept her voice low. “And standing in this corridor is not going to change that.”

I looked at the door.

Solid. Silent. Giving me absolutely nothing.

The thing about trusting someone was that it didn’t feel like a decision. It felt like standing on a ledge and choosing not to look down. You either did it or you didn’t and the ground was right there either way.

Five years in this house. Five years of Rhett watching and knowing and not destroying what I had built. Last night on the steps. The way he looked at me before he arranged his face.

Together.

I looked at the door one more time.

Then I looked away.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​