"No, no," He said in a rush, waving his hands. "It’s nothing like that."
Clint gave him a piercing look, clearly not believing him.
"You really don’t have to worry about me, I’ve got everything under control." He gave the nosy Alpha a frigid smile.
Lake’s phone rang then, interrupting Clint’s response. "Sorry, I’ve got to take this."
He stepped out of the class, taking the call in the little waiting room. It was Rosie calling back, the competent secretary was quick to apologize but Lake just waved it to the side.
The secretary wouldn’t know what she had just saved him from.
Clint thought he was in danger and Lake wasn’t about to give him the full story of what had actually happened.
He could just avoid the Alpha but it seemed like everything was working hard to stop him from doing that.
Inside the cooking class, Caspian was the only one paying complete attention. Asher was paying attention, to Caspian.
Clint was frozen in his seat. He had planned to go after Lake to have a proper conversation out of earshot of both Mafia Kings, but Davian’s slate eyes had pinned him down. If he made a move then, he couldn’t say how the situation would go.
How had Lake gotten himself entangled with such dangerous people?
It had barely been two weeks since the last time he saw Lake, it was insane that the Omega was already marked and pregnant. By none other than the Mafia King famous for his abstinence from sex.
It was like the plot of a shitty movie.
Lake gingerly stepped back in after his call, unaware of what had transpired in the few minutes he was gone.
Fortunately, Clint didn’t ask any more sketchy questions, and the entire group finally paid attention to the cooking teacher’s words.
This meant that Asher also tried to cook... Lake had been gently chopping some peppers when a loud explosion made him flinch.
"Fire!" Caspian panicked and before anyone could make a move Davian had already dunked a glass bowl of milk on the Alpha.
Asher shot him a cutting glare as the cooking teacher calmly stepped down from her podium to cover the flaming pot, the fire going off.
"I wasn’t even on fire." Asher bit out to Davian.
The other Mafia King was already back at his desk, a pleased expression on his face. "No need to thank me."
Asher was about to lunge when Caspian hurried over to his side with a hand towel to fuss over him.
Lake just massaged his temples, yeah, they weren’t doing this again.
This class ended peacefully, after that. The cooking teacher hastily rounded up and Lake couldn’t blame her, but before he could turn to Clint to see if the Alpha would make any moves, the space beside him was empty.
"Are you alright?" Davian was at his side in the next moment.
"Like hell I am," Asher bit out a response, still fuming from the cooking fire incident.
"Wasn’t asking you..."
Asher and Caspian didn’t stay long, the Alpha was still sticky no matter how hard Caspian had tried to get him cleaned up.
And if Caspian hadn’t been holding onto his arm the entire time, he would have tackled Davian for sure.
"Bye Lake!" Caspian cheerfully waved them off, "And I’ll see you at tomorrow’s class." He tagged on to Davian, walking off with his mate.
This left Lake and Davian in the mostly empty parking lot, the sky starting to turn red.
"Do you want to stop by the company?" Davian broke the awkward silence.
"I don’t need to, I already spoke to Rosie. Do you want to drive?"
The awkward air was strange, it hadn’t been when they were driving over. Lake expected Davian to question him about Clint, and he was bracing himself for when it would come.
"Do you want anything special for dinner?" Davian asked instead.
Lake gave him a look - he had been avoiding Davian the entire ride. "Are you cooking?"
"There’s not enough time," He grumbled, unhappy that that was the case.
"We could get extra so we can heat up the leftovers tomorrow morning." Lake suggested, saying more when he realized that the questions weren’t coming.
They had a product launch the next day, as well as the opening event for a chain of stores so they would need to be out of the mansion early in the morning. There wouldn’t be time for Davian to cook then either.
"I don’t want you eating stale food." Davian grumbled.
Lake wanted to protest that it would be refrigerated properly but he just smiled, they could always get something to eat after they left the mansion. "Fine."
By the time they got back to the mansion, he had already forgotten about Clint. He ordered dinner with Davian and after they were done eating, he stopped at the study.
Usually, he would stay in the kitchen while Davian did the dishes but he needed to read up on the product FluxCorp would be launching.
Rosie would give him a detailed briefing but he wanted to read up on it for himself, as well as familiarize himself with the plans for the store chain.
He was taking over for Davian after all, he needed to be able to handle any situation and answer questions directed at them.
Half an hour into his preview there was a faint knock on the door, the door opening a crack.
Lake looked up from the laptop, a soft smile on his face. "Do you want to keep me company?"
Davian stepped in like he was still thinking about it. "I don’t want to interrupt you."
Lake snorted, "I could read this report while hanging off a cliff," He said flippantly. "There should be time for you cooking class late in the afternoon after the store chain opening..."
Lake trailed off as he said that, half regretting bringing that up.
Davian lounged on a chair across from him, a familiar look in his eyes that told Lake he wouldn’t like what he was about to say.