"Then maybe start believing it." She slides out of the booth and gives me a hug that communicates more than she'll say out loud.
The walk back to the apartment door once inside the building takes forty-five seconds. The security escort nods at me again on the way past. My phone buzzes with a final text from Tamsin reads:if Dom tries to carry you to the bathroom again call me and i'll come fight him.
I smell Dominic as I get closer. Leather and smoke layered so thick in the hallway that he's either been pacing or standing at the door long enough to saturate the air. Underneath his scent I catch my own, the new sweetness that's been building since the park bench, and the combination of the two makes my bond marks pulse.
He's at the apartment door when I step out, and instead of leaning against the frame he steps forward into my path, just filling the space so that getting past him means going through him or choosing to stop.
I stop. His hand catches my wrist, loose enough that I could pull free without effort.
"You were gone for two hours."
"It was an hour and a half." I don't pull my wrist free. "I know it was more than one hour but I'm fine."
His nostrils flare as my scent reaches him at close range. The grip on my wrist shifts, his thumb pressing into my pulse point. He's scenting me through the contact and the Alpha focus in his expression is so concentrated that my breath catches.
"You smell like green tea and someone else's perfume." His thumb moves against my pulse.
"That would be Tamsin, who I had lunch with like a normal person who is not dying."
His jaw works and he lets go of my wrist.
I lean up and press my lips against his jaw for half a second before I keep walking toward the living room.
"Amos." I drop onto the couch beside him. "I have a doctor recommendation and a support group that meets on Thursdays. Tamsin says I need other Omegas who understand what it's like to be pregnant while two possessive territorial instinct machines try to manage the process."
Amos' mouth twitches. "She called us possessive territorial instinct machines?"
"She was being generous." I pull out my phone and forward him the doctor's contact. "Make the appointment. And stop reading research papers at me. When I need the data, I'll ask for it."
"Noted." He takes his glasses off and cleans them.
"How was lunch?" Amos sets the glasses down.
"Normal." I lean my head against his shoulder and close my eyes. "It was normal and I needed it."
Dominic sits in the chair across from us.
"Tamsin won forty dollars betting on us," I say into the quiet. "The whole office had a pool."
Dominic shifts in his chair and his eyes find mine across the room. "I knew about the pool."
"You knew."
"I run half the building, Mattaniah." His gaze doesn't move from mine. "The pool was useful. It meant people were paying attention to the right things."
I stare at him across the room. "You let people bet on our relationship because it was strategically useful."
"I let it run because shutting it down would have drawn more attention than ignoring it." The corner of his mouth lifts. "And because I was going to win."
"You are unbelievable."
His mouth curves up a little more, just barely.
Amos
Mattaniahissittingatthe kitchen table at seven in the morning with company documents spread around him in a semicircle.
He's been up since before either of us. The coffee maker is half empty, which means he's had at least two cups. The legal pad beside his laptop is covered in his small, precise handwriting. His hair is pulled back with one of my hair ties and the readingglasses he borrowed from my desk three days ago sit low on his nose.
