His shrug, even as tense and controlled as it was, wasn’t an answer.
I flattened my hands on the desk and glared at him.
It was like my temper just rolled off him, water against a rock. Frustrated, I straightened. “She’s not helping someone else. This is about her.”
“She wouldn’t go to this much trouble to hide her activities if it was anything else.”
My chest tightened.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
Jay stood up slowly, ejecting a flash drive from her computer before he shut it down. “We need to find her.”
“Where’s Roan?” We hadn’t spoken since the blow-up with Nate in the locker room.
Jay didn’t answer right away.
He slid the flash drive into his pocket, calm and clinical as ever, then finally said, “Roan’s looking into some things on his end.”
“What kind of things?” I asked, sharper than I meant to. “You think he knows more than we do?”
Jay tilted his head slightly, studying me like he was debating whether to tell me the truth or feed me something soft to keep me from blowing up again.
“He went to talk to Marchand,” Jay said finally. “Figured if anyone knows where she went—or why—he would.”
I scoffed. “Marchand doesn’t give a shit about any of us unless there’s a dollar sign next to it. He probablysenther off somewhere, just to keep her from being a distraction during the press storm he created.”
With a half-shrug and a raised a brow, Jay said, “Then Roan’s the one who might be able to get the truth out of him. So let him do his thing.”
My hands curled into fists. “Histhingis being a cold, controlling asshole who refuses to admit he cares about her.”
Jay’s expression didn’t shift, but I caught the faintest pause in his breathing. Just a flicker.
“We all care about her,” he said.
“But we don’t get to show it, right?” I threw my arms out. “We have to pretend she’s just the PR rep who talks shit and wears leather boots and doesn’t drive us completelyfucking feral.”
Arms folded, Jay leaned back against the edge of her desk. “You think I like this?”
“You’re acting like you do.”
He exhaled through his nose—barelya reaction, but enough to know I hit something.
“I’m not pretending,” he said. “I’m just waiting until I know what the hell is actually going on. Losing it isn’t going to help her.”
“You really think Marchand’s going to tell Roan the truth?” I asked, bitter. “That he’s just going to open a file and hand him amap and say, ‘Here’s where your missing PR manager is hiding while she explodes into an unclaimed omega heat’?”
Jay’s eyes flicked toward me.
Andthat—that little flash of narrowed, knowing focus?—
“Youdothink she’s an omega.” I said it low.
Jay didn’t answer right away.
He didn’t have to.
“Fuck me,” I muttered, sinking down into the guest chair opposite her desk.
