My heart did a pitter-patter against my ribcage like a butterfly trapped in closed palms.
"Coward," I whispered as I stared at the phone screen. Then I shoved the phone back into my pocket and leaned my head against the cold brick wall. They would never choose someone like me. Not in amillion years.
But as I stood there, inhaling the scent of bin juice and cold air, I wondered what did the man attached to that voice look like? He sounded posh, but he also spoke exactly how I wanted an alpha to talk to me.
Like he was in charge.
And for a terrifying second, I wished I hadn't hung up.
"Presley!" Maeve shouted from the back door. I jumped as she yelled, "Table six spilled a milkshake! It's everywhere!"
"Coming!" I smoothed down my dirty apron and walked back to my reality.
3
Hastings
I stared out ofthe window at the Thames. It was sluggish as it pulsed through the grayness of the city.
Up here, on the thirty-fifth floor, the world was silent, sealed behind the triple-glazed glass that turned the craziness of London into a mute, moving picture.
Inside the office, the air conditioner hummed with a low-frequency vibration that scratched at the back of my teeth. But that was because the advertisement hadn’t resulted in the right omega. We thought it would be easy. Money always talked.
Dark roast coffee mixed with the scent of three frustrated alphas.
"We need action," Fritz muttered as he spun his phone in his hand and paced the room.
At six-foot-four, with lean muscle that still strained the seams of his charcoal shirt, he made the expansive office feel like a broom cupboard. “We need to give the job back to the agency."
"Sit down, Fritz," Etienne said from the leather chesterfield. His ankle was resting on his muscular knee. He didn't look up from his phone, his thumb scrolling lazily. "You’re making me nervous."
"This is our future," Fritz snapped. He pivoted on a heel. "And this process is ridiculous."
"It's thorough," I said, though I wondered myself.
I went and sat behind the desk that had once been my father’s. A slab of polished mahogany that felt cold under my palms. My reflection ghosted on the dark wood. My dark hair had the first signs of silver at the temples, my gray eyes looked tired, and my jaw felt like it was locked in a permanent clench.
I was thirty-five years old and owned the Hastings Corporation. We built the high rises that people put on postcards. Fritz designed them, I built them, and Etienne... Well, he was the funny French rugby player whom we met when we watched England play France.
It was strange meeting a packmate under those circumstances. But we knew he was a packmate the moment we met him. We thought his omega was ours too.
How wrong we were.
So now we were omega-less but we had more money than we could ever need. We also had a home in Kensington that was empty and echoing.
We no longer needed an omega but I wanted a legacy.
A pack baby.
“Do we have any candidates that are possibilities?" Etienne asked.
"Two," Fritz said, stopping in front of my desk. "That is the sum total of six months of searching. Two."
"Tell me about them," I said, leaning back. The leather chair groaned.
"Number one." Fritz lifted a finger. "Married to a Beta. But she requires his signature for any medical procedures. Which is unacceptable."
"Agreed," I murmured. “But they’ll agree in the end. Money talks.”
