“They wouldn’t dare.”
"What about you?"
"I'm not stopping you from having this opportunity." She pulled clothes from my tiny wardrobe, folding them with efficient movements. "I can cope with a bit of sickness. Dave can cope without you for a few months."
"Nine—"
She grabbed my shoulders with trembling hands, turning me to face her. Her pupils were slightly dilated. She was genuinely unwell, but she was still here. Still trying to take care of me.
"You deserve this," she said quietly. "Security. Safety. A future that isn't..." She gestured at the caravan. "This."
The door frame creaked as Hastings reappeared, taking up the remaining space with his shoulders and his presence and that rain scent that made something low in my belly tighten.
"We need to leave," he said. "Now. The weather is turning."
Maeve released my shoulders and turned to face him. The height difference was almost comical. She barely came up to his chest, but she held his stare without flinching.
"She'd better call me every day," she said. "Every single day. If I don't hear from her—"
"She'll call." Hastings' voice was flat. "Are you coming, Presley?"
The question hung in the cramped air. Behind him, through the broken doorway, the helicopter waited. It was my escape. My freedom. This was my only chance at finding something other than freezing to death in a caravan while alphas circled closer and closer.
And then Etienne appeared at Hastings' shoulder, and his eyes found mine, and—
Oh.
He looked at me with a gaze that burned with something that went beyond professional interest, beyond biological impulse. Something hungry and desperate and if I dared to believe it. With want.
My skin flushed hot despite the cold.
"You’ve hit the jackpot," Maeve muttered in my ear, "because they're hardly here for your sophistication."
Hastings turned that granite stare of his on her. "We need a surrogate. The physical act is merely... necessary for conception."
"Keep telling yourself that." Maeve's voice was bone-dry as she glared at him. "She brought a perfectlygood turkey baster to the interview. Stop kidding yourself that you don't want her."
A muscle flexed in Hastings' jaw. He held her gaze for a long, loaded moment. It was an alpha against whatever Maeve was, which I'd never quite figured out because I was sure she was an omega but somedays, I doubted everything.
"Are you coming?"
I looked at Etienne, still watching me with those burning eyes. At Fritz by the window, ready to protect me from alphas I hadn't even realized were a threat. At Hastings, offering me everything I'd ever wanted wrapped in cold professionalism and a helicopter I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams.
Then at Maeve, who was sick and scared of something she'd never named, who'd made me a sandwich and walked me to work and was now shoving my only nice jumper into my rucksack. I couldn’t leave her. She needed me.
“Don’t you dare stay here for me.” Maeve’s voice wavered slightly, but was still wrapped in steel.
"Every day," I said, nodding. She wanted me to find something out of these metal walls. She gave me the clipping. "I'll call every day."
"You'd better." She zipped the bag, went to hand it to me, then dropped it between us and pulled me close for a hug. "Now go get knocked up by billionaires and don't forget to negotiate for helicopter visits back here."
I laughed and pulled her into a tighter hug. "Right. I need visitation rights. Be careful," I whispered.
"Be smart," she whispered back.
Then I let go, shouldered my rucksack, and stepped out of my caravan into whatever came next.
Hastings' hand landed on my lower back. It was barely a touch, just guidance as he steered me toward the helicopter. The warmth of his palm seared through my three jumpers like they were tissue paper.
