Page 113 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

I just want to protect you. I want to make sure no one ever hurts you, ever again.

The thought stops me cold. I don’t think like this. I have never, in my entire life, thought like this about anyone.

She looks up and catches me.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.” I clear my throat. “What time is the reservation?”

“Seven o’clock.” She gathers her files, slides them into her folder, and stands. “Goodnight, Max.”

She’s almost at the door when I hear myself say her name.

“Sophie.”

She turns, one hand on the frame, and the light from the corridor catches the side of her face.

I want to say something. About her smile earlier and how she made me laugh. About the fact that I watched her feet not reach the floor and wanted to burn the world down for every person who ever made her feel small.

I want to tell her that something changed in me tonight that I can’t change back.

“I’ll be there,” I say instead.

“I know,” she says.

And leaves.

CHAPTER 31

Sophie

Istand in front of the mirror and do what I’ve done before every seduction assignment since I was twenty-three years old.

I take myself apart and put someone else together.

The process is systematic and as mechanical as field-stripping a weapon. Foundation first—even-toned, poreless, fifteen minutes for skin that looks effortless. Then the eyes—dark shadow blended into the crease, liner drawn in a thin, precise wing, lashes darkened and separated until my eyes look wider, deeper, eyes that make men lean in. Lips last. A deep, dark red that makes a man’s gaze drop from your eyes to your mouth without him realizing he’s done it.

My hair is down. Loose waves that fall past my shoulders, soft and touchable. Hair that’s designed to make a man think he’s seeing the real you.

Except he’s not. None of them ever are.

The dress is black. Simple, fitted, a neckline that shows collarbones and the hollow of my throat without revealing more, the hem just above the knee. Long sleeves that cover everything that needs covering—the mark on my forearm where the intruder’s knife caught me and the map of violence that lives beneath my skin. The back is high, like it always is.

I step back and look at the woman in the mirror. She doesn’t look like Sophie Dysart. She doesn’t look like Sophie Aveline either. She looks like a weapon shaped like a dinner date.

I glance at my phone to check the time and slip it into a small clutch along with a lipstick, a credit card, and a ceramic blade the length of my index finger.

Some habits die hard.

I walk off the property along the service path—the one that curves behind the residential wing and far enough from the building that no one will see me getting into a car that isn’t a cab.

Max is already there.

His Range Rover is parked beneath the trees, engine off, headlights dark. He’s leaning against the passenger side with his arms crossed, white shirt, no tie, his dark hair falling in that slightly wavy way it always does, like he spent an hour on it, though I’m starting to suspect that’s just how it grows.

His eyes meet mine the moment I round the corner, as if he sensed me coming. His arms unfold and his hands drop to his sides.

I walk toward him through the dusk, and I can feel his gaze on me like something physical—on my hair, on my legs, on the dress that moves against my thighs with every step. The distance between us closes and he slides his hands into his pockets.