Get it together, Julian. You have bigger problems than unrequited attraction to an omega who's clearly already spoken for.
Elias smirks from his chair, leaning back until he's balancing on the rear legs in that annoying way that always makes me want to kick the chair out from under him. "Do you two know each other?"
"She was at the gym or whatever," I grumble, shuffling toward the kitchen table because standing in the doorway like aconfused statue isn't going to help anyone. "Caught her having a moment. Gave her some iron gummies. End of story."
Not the end of the story. Not even close. But they don't need to know that.
"Iron gummies," Elias repeats, grinning. "How romantic."
"Fuck off."
The omega—Rosemarie, I remember now, though I've been calling her Sweet Ditzy in my head for two days—walks to the table and sets the plates in front of Tank and Elias with practiced efficiency. She moves like someone who's spent time in hospitality, graceful and purposeful, not a single wasted motion.
Then she turns to me, those hazel eyes meeting mine with an expression that's somehow both hesitant and challenging.
"Are you hungry?"
"No."
My stomach chooses that exact moment to growl. Loud. Insistent. The kind of growl that echoes in a quiet kitchen and makes everyone stop what they're doing to stare at you.
Traitor.
Elias snorts. Tank's lips twitch. And Rosemarie—the woman I'm trying very hard not to find attractive—looks like she's doing her absolute best not to laugh.
This is humiliating. This is absolutely humiliating. I came here to discuss the potential end of my career, and instead I'm being betrayed by my own digestive system in front of an omega who already thinks I'm a bully for calling her ditzy.
I feel heat creeping up my neck, threatening to become an actual blush, and I refuse to acknowledge it. I am thirty-five years old. I am a professional model. I do not blush because a pretty omega caught me in a lie about being hungry.
Rosemarie smirks—actuallysmirksat me, the little demon—and says, "An extra plate of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and fruit is coming up. How do you like your coffee?"
"Black," I grumble.
"Like his soul," Elias adds helpfully.
"Fuck off."
"You already said that."
"It bears repeating."
Tank cuts through our bickering with the kind of direct authority that comes from years of military training and a general lack of patience for bullshit. "Why are you so grumpy today?"
I don't answer. I just walk to the table and drop into the empty chair with more force than necessary, slumping into the seat like I'm trying to become one with the furniture. Maybe if I sit here long enough, the universe will take pity on me and solve all my problems.
Ha. As if the universe has ever done anything but make my life more complicated.
Tank and Elias exchange a look—that silent communication they do when they've decided I'm being difficult and need to be managed. I hate that look. I especially hate that look when I'm already in a terrible mood and don't have the energy to defend myself against their combined scrutiny.
"Julian." Tank's voice is stern. The voice he used to use on new recruits. The voice that saysI'm not asking, I'm ordering.
"C'est des conneries," I mutter under my breath. "Tout ça pour une putain d'Oméga que je n'ai pas."
Movement in my peripheral vision makes me look up. Rosemarie is walking toward me with a plate—piled high with food I definitely said I didn't want—and there's something in her expression. Curiosity. Understanding. Like she caught what I said even though I deliberately switched to French specifically so no one would understand me.
Can she speak French? Does she understand?—
She sets the plate down in front of me without comment, but her eyes flicker to mine for just a moment. There's something knowing in that look. Something that suggests she understood more than I wanted her to.
