Page 26 of His Reward (Omegas After Dark: Omega Auction #2)

Jennifer’s face pinched with desperate awkwardness.

She glanced to my father, which was all I needed to know what was really behind this surprise.

“I’m really sorry, Lucien,” she said, changing her tone to the off-camera way she’d always talked to me.

“I wasn’t aware you didn’t know we were coming.

Pietro said you were interested in doing a human-interest piece for us to air during the Winter Games about your recovery. ”

“I’m not,” I said flatly, glaring at my father.

“I warned you about being difficult,” my father said with a scowl, not hiding his contempt for me, even from Jennifer. “Just do the interview so you can bow out of the sport gracefully.”

My eyebrows shot up, although the scarring on the left side of my face made the expression of shock lopsided and strange-looking. Even Jennifer looked uncomfortable with everything my father was saying.

I shifted to look Jenn in the eyes and said, “I’m not bowing out of professional skating. I fully intend to work with my therapy team to get my body back into competitive shape, and I will compete at the Winter Games in three years.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Father said. He addressed Jennifer with all his charm turned up and said, “Lucien knows he can’t compete anymore.

He’s dating the firefighter who pulled him out of the burning rink, Mr. Boston Fielding here.

” He gestured to Boston who glared knives at him.

“Things are going great between the two of them. We expect a certain announcement any day now. Lucien couldn’t have found a better alpha to settle down and start a family with.

I’m sure I’ll have a whole team of skating grandchildren in no time. ”

I narrowed my eyes at my father. His words seemed well-rehearsed and thought out, like a script.

“Is that true?” Jennifer asked, blinking genuinely at Boston. “Are you the firefighter who rescued Lucien?”

“I am,” Boston said, arms crossed, still standing half in front of me.

“And the two of you are dating?” she asked on, her expression so hopeful.

It felt like something was gnawing at my insides, like I was being dragged kicking and screaming…

into something I desperately wanted. It would be a lie to deny dating Boston.

It would be disingenuous to say I hadn’t dreamed of marrying him and having kids with him.

Over and over, I’d dreamed about a play scenario where we pretended he was force-breeding me and I got pregnant for real, but nobody other than me and Boston needed to know that.

Basically, I hated the fact that all the things I wanted seemed to be playing right into my father’s hand.

Well, not all the things he wanted.

“I am dating Boston, yes,” I said, shifting to stand by Boston’s side and taking his hand instead of half hiding behind him. “And yes, he is the firefighter who saved me from the blaze.” Nobody needed to know we’d met before or how. Nobody at all. Ever.

“You see?” my father said, grinning and gesturing to us. “It’s the perfect human interest story. I couldn’t have arranged it better myself.”

Father laughed. Everyone else in the room tensed. I could feel Boston bristle, and he probably felt just how irritated I was as well.

I cut through the moment by addressing Jennifer directly again and said, “Boston and I are together, and he’s been a huge help and encouragement in my dream of getting back out on the ice again and winning that gold medal at the Winter Games in three years.”

“This is ridiculous,” my father said with a scowl.

“You’re really determined to make a comeback?” Jennifer asked, side-eying my father.

“Absolutely,” I said. “One hundred percent.”

Jenn looked a little more openly at my father for a second before she seemed to make a choice and address me. “Would you be willing to do an interview about that? About all of this, really,” she asked, gesturing to Boston and the rehab room.

I winced. My skin still throbbed and itched from Gemma’s work for the last hour. All I wanted to do was go home and curl up on the sofa with Boston, watching whatever he wanted to watch on TV while I took a nap in his arms.

“Alright,” I said with a tired sigh, rubbing my forehead with my good hand.

“But some other day. I’m exhausted from therapy, and Boston really needs to go back to work at the firehouse.

” I sent Boston a stern look to remind him that I didn’t want him to get fired for taking too much time away from his job.

I had a feeling that had been more of a real possibility lately than he wanted to let on.

“I’m not on duty until five tonight,” he said, like I’d been sassy and he was sassing me back.

“Aaw, you two are so cute together,” Jennifer said, back to being her happy, perky self.

Arrangements for a more formal interview were made.

I tried to take charge of the whole thing, but I hadn’t been lying when I said I was exhausted, and my father was still bound and determined to make the whole thing about him.

Once I was finished with Jennifer, he walked her and her cameraman out of the building, which couldn’t have been good.

“I swear,” Mom said as she and Boston walked with me out to Boston’s car, “there are days when I want to divorce that man.”

“Why don’t you?” I asked, too tired to censor myself.

Mom sighed. “He wasn’t always like this, you know. Getting older has been hard on him. He just wants to be relevant.” She paused as Boston held the door for me and I climbed into his passenger seat, then finished with, “But if he keeps acting like this….”

“I love you, Mom,” I said, leaning out of the car so I could kiss her cheek.

I spent the whole ride home in relative silence, stewing over the whole thing.

My father had crossed a serious line. We were going to have to have a talk, sooner rather than later.

Mom was right to say that he’d changed. I also understood her reasons for not leaving him, even though he’d turned into a first-rate jerk.

I hadn’t exactly pried myself out of his controlling grasp either.

Was that impulse to stay in an unhealthy relationship connected to my need to sub out now and then? God, I hoped not.

“Do you want me to stay for a while?” Boston asked once we’d made it home.

Yes. Please stay. Please stay forever and make me feel that you still want me.

“You need to get to work,” I told him.

Boston gave me that look that said he could see straight through me. He stepped up to where I’d moved to look out the window at the ocean, turned me to face him, and pulled me into an embrace.

“You need me to stay,” he said. “I can see it all over your face. I can feel it in the proto-bond between us.”

“There’s no such thing as a proto-bond, you made that up,” I said.

The look he gave me said he wasn’t amused with me splitting hairs and avoiding the subject. It also had my insides quivering and slick threatening to make me wet.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, resting his hand tenderly on the side of my face. “I can’t help you if you keep hiding things from me.”

My eyes widened. “I’m not hiding anything.” I didn’t think I was.

Boston’s expression said he thought otherwise.

I blew out a breath, letting the depression I’d been battling settle over me like a weighted blanket for a second. “I don’t feel like myself anymore,” I said, looking down. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, other than the obvious. I miss me, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to be me again.”

“Oh, baby,” Boston murmured.

He tilted my head up and was about to bend down to kiss me when there was a loud knock at the door.

“Lucien, open up, it’s me,” my father’s voice sounded from the hallway.

Unexpected fury washed through me. “Son of a—” I hissed, then broke away from Boston. I marched to the door, Boston right behind me, and yanked it open. “What?” I demanded of my surprised father. “What do you want?”

“We need to discuss what you’re going to say in your interview with Jennifer,” Father said. “You need to set her straight and tell her you’ve left skating for good.”

He tried to enter the apartment, but I stood in his way. “I’m not going to tell her anything of the sort,” I said.

My father looked at me like I was a child throwing a tantrum.

He ignored what I said and went on with, “You’re going to get married to Boston here, have kids, and encourage your kids to follow in your footsteps to achieve the dream you were never able to reach.

That’s the best outcome of this situation, the only outcome. ”

Again, Father tried to enter the apartment. This time it was Boston who blocked his way. “You heard what Lucien said,” Boston told my father. “You’ve heard what he’s been saying all along, but now it’s time you start listening. He’s going to recover and skate again.”

My father glared at him like Boston had double-crossed him somehow. “You don’t know anything about it, anything about skating,” he said.

“I know that Lucien is strong,” Boston said. “I know he can achieve anything he puts his mind to. And I’ll support him when he does.”

Father bristled for a moment as the reality that he wasn’t going to get his way sunk in. Once it did, he turned to me and said, “Well, I’m not going to coach you.”

His declaration didn’t have the impact he must have thought it would. “I don’t want you to coach me,” I told him. “In fact, I don’t want you to come anywhere near me. Don’t come by again, don’t call me, and don’t talk to the press about me.”

My father looked indignant. “You’re cutting me off?” he demanded. “You’re cutting me off?”

“Yes, Father, I am,” I said, a weird feeling of giddy freedom coming over me. “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. At least, not for now. Please go, I want to take a nap.”

Father stood where he was for a moment, quivering with outrage.

He recovered from that with alarming speed, turning downright cold.

“Fine,” he said. “You don’t want anything to do with me anymore?

Then I’m through with you as well. I’m done with trying to protect you from these things you think you want. You’re on your own.”

That was it. He turned and walked away without saying another word, not even goodbye.

I shut the door and let out a heavy breath. Boston locked the door with a loud clack, then pulled me into his arms.

“It’ll be okay,” he said, holding me so close it felt like he was crushing me into his body. “You don’t need him to be a champion. You don’t need him to be you.”

He was absolutely right, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to weep. I’d never felt so much like I was at the bottom of a dark hole with no way out in my life.