“Probably. They only want a baby.”
“Or they have a barren omega.”
“And if so, he or she will certainly not want their alphas’ dicks inside you.”
The bell above the door rang out.
“That’s the end of our break,” I grumbled.
The afternoon dragged on. The lunch rush was a parade of jacket potatoes and lukewarm soups. I wiped tables, smiled until my face hurt, and tried to ignore the newspaper clipping burning a hole in my apron pocket as I thought aboutanything else.
The leak in the caravan roof dripped right onto the foot of my bed when it rained hard.
The wind rattled the windows so hard the glass would shatter if it weren't held together by cling film, duct tape, and a prayer. For some weird reason, I even thought about the bank manager's face when he'd told me my parents' house was being repossessed, when I thought they’d paid it off.
But could I take an alpha’s money? Would I have to carry their child for nine months before I got paid? What if they changed their minds? What if their omega hated me!
Theirs was a different world. A world where heat was a given, not a luxury. Where food wasn't calculated by the pence.
At three o'clock, I went on my break.
I didn't stay in the warm cafe. I went out the back, into the alleyway where the bins were kept. I inhaled, and regretted it immediately when the smell of rotting cabbage caught in my nose as the wind whipped around the corner.
I shivered as it bit at my exposed neck, but I needed the cold. I needed a reality check.
The clipping was still in my pocket. My fingers wrapped around my phone. “What’s the worst they can say?”
My thumb hovered over the number.
Don't be stupid, Presley. They'll laugh at you.
But the cold was seeping into my bones, and I was so tired of being cold.
I dialed the number. The phone rang.
Once. Twice.
"Hastings," a voice answered.
It wasn't a receptionist. It was a man. And his voice was so deep, a baritone, rich sound that had the kind of authority that made your knees want to shake and your thighs to want to do something traitorous.
Stop it!
I froze. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Hello?" the voice said. "Is anyone there?"
He sounded... impatient.Dominant.Like a typical alpha.
Panic clawed up my throat. I looked at the overflowing bin next to me, at the graffiti on the brick wall that saidSHAZZA LOVES NIGEL, and then at my chipped fingernails.
What was I doing?
I was a waitress who lived in a tin can. It didn't matter that I was ready and already had a turkey baster in a carrier bag. I wasn't what a man like Hastings wanted in his fancy place in Kensington.
"Hello!" His irritation growled through the line.
I hung up.
