That being said, my uncles wouldn’t relent until I conceded, so I sat down in a blue armchair. I left the pink chair my aunt used to sit in empty. Rupert’s eyes flitted to it, and I saw a flash of pain on his face. While I didn’t have any love for my uncles, we were all connected in our grief over the loss of Cat.
“This is Clarence and Don Cross. I’ve known them for years through work,” Rupert said.
I waited for him to say more, but when he didn’t, I furrowed my brow. “Umm, nice to meet you.”
“It’s always a pleasure to meet such a beautiful omega,” Don said smoothly.
I clenched my jaw to keep from shuddering.
“Clarence and Don run a successful pharmaceutical company. Their omega died a few years ago, and they’ve been looking to complete their pack. They’ve expressed interest in courting you.” Alex fixed me with a steely gaze that felt like a warning.
My mouth opened and then closed again as I tried to process his words. “What?” I finally choked out.
“What’s so hard to understand?” Sean said impatiently. “You need a pack to care for you. You can’t expect us to do that forever.”
“Don’t worry, omega, we’ll take good care of you,” Clarence said with a leering smile.
“I can take care of myself,” I said. “I don’t need to court someone three times my age.”
Clarence’s jaw tightened and I thought I saw one of his hands form a fist before it relaxed again. “Your uncles told us you were a sassy thing. Don’t worry, we’ll work through that.”
I blinked. This was not happening right now. “Well, unfortunately I’m not eligible to join a pack,” I said, pasting a smile on my face. I’d never been happier about my ineligibility.
“Don’t worry about that,” Don said, waving his hand. “We don’t have to bond for you to be our omega.”
I blinked. Joining a pack and remaining unbonded was unheard of. First, resisting the alpha/omega instinct to bond was almost impossible. Well, I guessed not so challenging if you hated your packmates. But bonding also gave omegas legal standing with the pack. Without that, we had no financial power or other rights that came with being bonded.
I stood up, locking my knees to keep my legs from shaking. “Thank you for your courting offer, but I’m not interested.” I kept my voice polite, using all my years of practice to suppress the rage I felt.
Alex closed the distance between us, lowering his voice so his words were just for me. “You’re the one who was so concerned about those letters and paying rent. We’ve let you stay here because Cat insisted. We have protected you out of the kindness of our hearts. But Cat is gone, and you need to move on. Soon.”
An icy chill went through me. I hadn’t expected to be cast out of the house.
“You can’t force me to be with them,” I hissed. “The law protects me now.”
“Oh, yes, it does,” Alex responded menacingly. “Little miss independent omega. Let’s see how far that gets you in life.” He raised his voice, now speaking to the whole room. “Westin is overwhelmed by the generosity of your courting offer, so I ask you to excuse her rude behavior. She would be happy to allow you to take her out.”
My urge to curse them all and leave in a blaze of glory warred with my self-preservation. So I gritted my teeth and muttered, “Ihave errands to run,” before turning on my heel and leaving the room.
20
WESTIN
My phone lit up with a text notification. I leaned over the worktable to see the message without touching my phone with frosting-covered hands. It was another message from Henry asking me how I was.
Tendrils of guilt crawled through my chest. I hadn’t responded to him or Nox since my uncles’ ambush yesterday. It wasn’t fair to them to lead them on when I couldn’t offer more.
It had only been a day of not talking to them, and I already missed them.
I lost my grip on the piping bag as Josie burst into the kitchen in a whirlwind of pink and sugar. I was shocked she hadn’t drilled me about my date with Henry, but the past few days at the bakery had been hectic. Ben was out of town, so it was just Josie and me running things.
“Westin, I’m so sorry this is last minute, but I just remembered I have a shit-ton of cupcakes to make for this big order tomorrow. I thought it was for next week, and now I’ve messed everything up. Any chance you could stay to help me?” Josie looked panicked as she wrung her hands, her shoulders hunched as if someone was going to start yelling at her.
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “It’s no big deal.”
Josie blinked. “Are you sure? I’ll order us dinner and pay you overtime.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, putting down the piping bag I was holding and going to her side. “We can make this fun, yeah?”
