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My breathing came fast and hard; my fingers clenched the edge of Zalen’s desk until they ached. With a sharp pang, I recognized that I was about two seconds from completely losing my composure over a relationship I’d sworn up and down was nothing more than casual sex.
“Byron.”
And, oh, how IhatedZalen’s soothing tone. It was a tone that said he saw right through me... that he wasn’t angry. That he wanted to takecareof me.
“Sit.”
It was still gentle, but it was no less an alpha command. I knew, with every fiber of my being, that giving into it would hurt like knives. Like failure. But that didn’t stop my knees from giving way, tipping me into the extra chair that sat on this side of the desk.
I continued to clench the edge of the smooth wood surface, my face burning with humiliation. Abandoning the fight for Mia felt like giving up a limb, and I silently cursed the deeply ingrained alpha instincts that were so utterly ill-suited to life in a modern world.
“I don’t even know why I’m so upset,” I choked out, still unable to look Zalen in the eye. “I sleep with anyone who wants to be in my bed. Can’t exactly get jealous if she does, too.”
There was a short pause. “Have you, though? Slept with anyone else since she came here, I mean?” There was genuine curiosity in Zalen’s voice.
“With Luca,” I said, not sure why the question made me feel so defensive.
“Butonlywith Luca,” Zalen finished. “Byron, you must realize that everyone in this house is falling for her, in their various ways. Luca included.”
I heard his chair scrape as he resumed his seat across the desk from me.
“So, what if they are?” I asked mulishly.They, notwe. It felt like a lie, bitter on my tongue.
“I don’t know yet,” Zalen said. “And maybe now’s not the right time to act on whatever’s happening between all of us. If for no other reason than it’s not fair to her, when she’s already overwhelmed with big life events.”
He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. I dragged my gaze up, finally regaining the cajones to look him in the face again as he continued speaking.
“For what it’s worth, I had no intention of falling into bed with her when I left the Hope Project this afternoon,” he said. “And at this point, I don’t know if it ended up being a good idea or a terrible one.”
A traitorous little voice whispered that falling into bed with Mia—or Mia and Luca together—wasalwaysa good idea.
“Planning on making a habit of it?” I managed through clenched teeth.
Zalen shook his head. “No. Not under these circumstances. Like I said, I’m not sure it’s fair to her to muddy the waters right now. I know it probably doesn’t feel like it, but I’m not trying to take anything away from you, Byron. Or from Luca, either.”
He was right. Itdidn’tfeel like it.
His mouth twisted unhappily. “Still, I think it would be best if we all got a little more honest about what we want in this house.”
My chest felt like someone had welded an iron band around it. “I don’t want anything,” I grated.
A hint of sadness pulled at his expression. “Yeah, I can see that,” he said, utterly deadpan.
I did not go straight downstairs and haul Mia over my shoulder like a caveman dragging a prize back to his den. I did not summon Luca to my room to drown our frustrations in each other’s bodies.
Instead, I went to bed and stewed in my own juices for the rest of the night. Or, more accurately, I stewed in the slowly fading aroma of Mia and Zalen’s juices. I wondered, briefly, whether there might be a bottle of industrial-strength upholstery cleaner in the basement closet that held our housecleaning supplies. But I actually hated the way that shit smelled, so it wasn’t like I would have used it anyway.
The urge washed over me to go out and score a week’s worth of one-night stands, bringing every single one of them back here to my room to cover up Mia and Zalen’s scent with the scent of strangers. Then, I tried to picture what it would feel like to do that, and a wave of nausea hit me. My gorge rose.
What the fuck washappeningto me?
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the buzzing thoughts swirling around inside it. In the end, the only thing for it was normalcy—or at least, the appearance of it.
And so, I acted normal.
I went to work. I did my job. I came home and was mostly civil to the other people in the house. And at night, I ruminated on where and how everything had gone off the rails so badly.After considerable thought, it occurred to me that Nat Fucking Bell was probably to blame.
Mia’s husband was undeniably hot, and apparently not as much of an asshole as it appeared at first glance. He’d screwed up his marriage to a beautiful, ambitious and talented omega. That was what had dropped Mia into our lives in the first place. At which point, everything had becomecomplicated.