The thought of her with anyone else makes my head hurt, and I rub my temples as I chew. If I’m not careful, I’ll throw myself into a migraine. My ears are already fucking ringing.
“Drink some coffee,” Aled grunts. “You look pale.”
Swallowing hard, I wince as I nod. That bite of food feels like lead as it travels down my throat, and I put it away for coffee. I’m going to fake it until I make it, ticking one more mark of loss under the guise of loyalty.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t know this woman, someone, somewhere, thought she’d be a good omega for my pack.
“Are we going to tell Gareth about her?” I ask.
“Absolutely not,” Maddox growls.
Our father adopted Gareth when he was three, and his mother died soon before Dad remarried to Aled and my mother. Outside of my twin, my brothers all have different mothers. Aled and Gareth are very close, and there’s not a drop of familial blood between any of us. It’s the kind of close that means I have to sleep with ear plugs in the room next to his so that I won’t have to listen to them fuck. Aled wasn’t kidding when he said that he was more attracted to men.
We can’t tell Gareth because he lives by a very specific moral compass. He would kidnap Olivia without a second thought and keep her. Fucking insane beta.
“Goddamnit, do you see what a mess this is now?” Aled asks.
“You’re the one who insisted that they needed an assistant,” I laugh. “The way I see it, this is your fault.”
The iced coffee goes down smoother, giving me a jolt of energy when Vera returns with my laptop. This time, I get up to take it from her, and return to my seat to get to work. Forcing myself to turn off my conscience, I begin to dive into Olivia’s past.
After just a few minutes, I can feel myself threatening to thaw, but one glance at Maddox’s thunderous features makes me rethink that. She’s a nobody, and by the end of the day, she’ll be even less than that.
“How’s it going?” he asks.
“She was in a mental institution up till three years ago,” I reply. “It appears in the records that she’s unstable as fuck.”
“Excellent,” he says. “Find it all for me.”
Aled gets comfortable and props his feet on the coffee table. “Wake me up when it’s time for me to do something. I’m not going back to my office today. If I could go home without Gareth pulling the truth out of me, I would. This is one of the more fucked up things we’ve ever done.”
“It was your idea,” I remind him absently, falling down the rabbit hole of information in Olivia’s chart.
Every word tells a story of an omega very different from the one I leaned over less than an hour ago. Something isn’t adding up.
Who are you, Olivia?
My eyes flick up to meet Maddox’s gaze and I shake my head slightly, showing that it’s a bit more complicated than we originally thought. Maddox winces, beginning to plan a contingency in case Olivia throws a tantrum over being fired.
Taking a deep breath, I go back to my work.Teulu yw popeth.
Family is everything.
OLIVIA
Not a soul has come to check on me all day. I worked through lunch because I didn’t know when I was supposed to leave, and my head hurts from taking bites of a protein bar while I work.
I’m not sure what to think of Behan Communications. I feel as if I need a redo of my first day. One where I don’t feel ostracized by my boss.
I lied this morning when I was asked what I was doing on the computer. Instead, I was pulling up the Behan Communications website to see who was who in the company. I learned that Aled Behan is my boss, but he wasn’t the one who came into the office earlier today.
That alpha didn’t smell like bergamot and spices, but instead macerated berries that I strangely wanted poured all over me. They’re obviously twins, I had a sense this was the case from my interaction with them both this morning. Regardless, Cai Behan smells fucking incredible.
The only reason I didn’t perfume was because of the strict control on my body.
Even if I did, my panties wouldn’t allow any scent to escape. They’re a form of scent dousing and shapewear contraption that came in handy today.
Finishing my last call from the list, I send that person their form through email and checkmark their name. I’m finally done.
