Page 6

Emmie

The next night, I curl up on my bedroom windowsill with my phone, hoping to speak to my sister Lottie again.

I need to hear her voice more than I need my next breath.

The cottage is quiet when I press her name.

Mom is having dinner with the staff at the main house, part of her integration into the household.

My heart pounds when she answers on the third ring.

“Emmie!” Her voice is bright, almost too bright, but it’s still hers. “I’ve been meaning to call you back. How are you settling in?”

Relief floods through me so completely that I almost start crying. “Lottie, thank God. I was getting so worried. You haven’t been answering your phone.”

“I know, I’m sorry. Carlos has been...he’s been keeping me busy.” There’s something in her tone that makes me sit up straighter. “But enough about me. Tell me about your new place. Is it as grand as it sounded?”

I launch into a description of the estate, the cottage, my time at college. But as I talk, I notice the sounds of music and laughter drifting across from the main house. The kind of rowdy noise that suggests a party in full swing.

“There’s actually a party happening right now,” I tell her, glancing toward the manor’s lit windows. “Some kind of celebration at the main house. It’s pretty loud.”

“A party? How fun!” But Lottie’s enthusiasm sounds forced. “Are you invited?”

“God, no. I’m the housekeeper’s daughter, which everyone is happy to keep reminding me of. I’m supposed to be invisible.” I shift on the window seat, trying to get comfortable. “And the son, Romeo. Well…he’s...complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

I hesitate, unsure how much to tell her. “He’s attracted to my scent.”

“Your scent is false, isn’t it?” she whispers.

“My primary scent is enhanced to hide my rare scent, which totally changes how my perfume really smells. But I think enhancing the primary has made Romeo think we’re scent matches.”

“And what do you think? Is there a possibility that you can have a scent match?”

I sigh. “I can obviously smell his scent too, but…I don’t know…”

The silence stretches so long I wonder if the call dropped.

Finally, Lottie sighs deeply. “Oh, Emmie, you don’t sound too thrilled by him—“

“Definitely not thrilled. He wants me to be his secret partner while he keeps his perfect girlfriend in public.” The words taste bitter as I say them.

“What the hell?”

“I know. I told him no, obviously.”

“Good. You don’t need that kind of complication. And in reality, if he can fight his instincts, he can’t be a true scent match. He can smell your top layer, but not the real you.”

“I know, and the last thing I need is an alpha complication. Not when I’ve just escaped one,” I whisper into my phone like someone is going to hear me.

I stare out of the window. The night is clear, stars winking above Silvercrest Manor like it’s part of a fairytale.

“Just a minute…” There’s a pause, then Lottie’s voice drops to a whisper. “I have to tell you that Carlos has been asking about you and Mom.”

My blood runs cold at the mention of her husband. “You haven’t told him anything, right?”

“Of course not. But Emmie, he knows something’s up. He keeps checking my phone, monitoring my calls. That’s why I waited for him to be at the club before I answered your call.”

“Is he hurting you?” I ask, my grip tightening on the phone.

Another pause. “Not physically. But...I hate him, Em. I hate what this marriage has become.”

The bitter irony isn’t lost on me. Lottie was married off to a mafia alpha who wanted heirs. She thought getting away from our stepfather was easy. Now she is trapped in a different gilded cage.

“I just wish...” I trail off, staring at the manor house.

“What?”

“I wish I had an Alpha who actually cared. Someone powerful enough to protect me, but who wouldn’t treat me like property?” I laugh without humor. “Stupid Omega dreams, right?”

“Not stupid,” Lottie says softly. “Just unlikely in our world.”

“Are you okay?” I ask her. “You sound a little down.”

“Fine. Just sad that I don’t know when we’ll see each other again.”

“We’ll work something out.” I just don’t know how.

There’s another pause, and when she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “Emmie, I need to tell you something about—“

The line goes dead.

I stare at my phone in confusion, then try calling back. It goes straight to voicemail. I try three more times with the same result, that familiar knot of worry reforming in my stomach.

An hour later, I’m still thinking about my sister. Something isn’t right with her. I can feel it in my bones, the way she sounded too bright, too careful. Like she was performing happiness rather than feeling it. But there’s nothing I can do from here except hope she’s safe and call again tomorrow.

The party sounds are getting louder now, music thumping across the grounds.

I try to focus on my biology textbook, reading about metabolic processes, but the noise is distracting.

Every few minutes, bursts of laughter or shouting pierce through the night air.

I’m halfway through a chapter when I give up and grab my e-reader and open it to where I finished reading the mafia romance I’d downloaded.

But the moment I read my book, movement near the garden catches my eye.

Two figures emerge from the main house, silhouetted against the warm light spilling from the windows.

Even from this distance, I recognize Romeo’s tall frame, the confident way he moves through the space like he owns it.

The woman with him is smaller, blonde—Cerise, I realize.

Her cheerleader uniform is now traded for a short dress that shows off her perfect figure.

I should look away. I should close the curtains and mind my own business.

But I don’t.

Romeo backs Cerise against the garden wall, his hands tangling in her hair as he kisses her hard. She responds eagerly, her leg wrapping around his waist as she pulls him closer.

Even from my window, I can see the heat between them, the way they move together like they’ve done this a hundred times before.

My chest tightens with something that feels suspiciously like jealousy—which is ridiculous.

I turned Romeo down. I told him I wanted nothing to do with his arrangement.

I have no right to feel anything about who he kisses or how.

But watching him touch Cerise makes something crack inside my rib cage.

This is what he chose instead of fighting for the match he feels.

Romeo’s hands move to Cerise’s dress, pushing it up her thighs as she arches against him. The moonlight catches on her blonde hair, her perfect skin, the expensive jewelry at her throat. She looks like she belongs in his world in a way I never could. They’re beautiful together. Perfect.

Everything I’m not.

Even though I don’t want him, the pain in my chest intensifies, making it hard to breathe. I press my hand to my sternum, trying to ease the ache, but it only gets worse as I watch Romeo move in and out of the woman he chose as his.

This is what I gave up. This is what I walked away from.

Suddenly, the cottage feels suffocating. The walls seem to press in around me, and the air tastes stale and wrong. I need space, need air, need anything but the sight of Romeo Silver fucking someone else.

I grab my hoodie and slip out of the cottage as quietly as possible.

Outside, the night air is cool against my heated skin. It carries the scent of roses and dew and something else—the faint traces of Alpha arousal that make my breath hitch.

I wander through the gardens, trying to escape the sounds from both the main house party and the more intimate celebration happening against the wall. But their sounds follow me, embedded in the very air, a constant reminder of what I felt today and what I rejected.

Maybe I made the wrong choice. Maybe accepting his arrangement would have been better than this hollow ache in my chest, this sense of mourning something I never had. I hate being an Omega. I hate it makes me feel like this.

He is not mine. He can’t be.

And Romeo’s offer wasn’t about partnership or even desire—it was about convenience. He wants to have his cake and eat it too, keeping his perfect public relationship while using me to satisfy his baser needs.

He’s just an Alpha who needs an Omega and is trying to make me believe something that is false. And even I know I deserve better than that. Don’t I? I have to believe I deserve better than that. But watching him with Cerise makes me question everything I thought I knew about what I want.

I don’t make it far before I hear footsteps on the gravel path behind me. Loud enough to announce their approach rather than startle me.

I quickly duck behind a large hedge, praying whoever it is won’t notice me. The last thing I need is to be caught wandering the grounds. When the footsteps pass by without slowing, I’m left alone, trying not to think about why seeing Romeo with Cerise bothered me.

When I think it’s safe enough, I peek over the hedge to see Romeo walking between the garden hedges. He’s alone, his hair disheveled and his shirt slightly wrinkled.

The air where he walked by was now scented with her cloying perfume and mixed with his natural alpha musk.

My stomach turns.

I duck back behind the hedge and wait for his footsteps to disappear.

Only then do I let myself breathe.