Page 60 of Omega's Formula
For the last week, he’s barely looked at me. He’s slept on the couch, I slept in the bedroom, and during the day we orbited each other with careful distance. When he did speak, it was in a flat professional voice that made me want to shake.
I have no idea what transgression was so unforgivable that it could erase five days of what I thought was a real connection. It can’t be to do with Alistair and my court case against his company. We’ve already had that argument. Nothing has changed from before.
It has to be something else because in the last few days, he’s just looked through like I’d already become a ghost.
Even more pathetic, is the fact that he won’t talk about it. That’s the most infuriating thing. This is toddler behavior. Erik Nilsson might be one of the most powerful men in the country, worth billions, commanding a network of companies that employs thousands and he’s refusing to talk to me like he’s a five year old who didn’t have the crusts cut off his sandwich.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe he can’t tell me the reason because he knows he’s being ridiculous. Whatever it is, it’s pathetic and it’s reminding me why I didn’t want to get involved with the asshole in the first place. Chemistry might be recipe for great sex, but it’ll do nothing to prevent a bad marriage.
The front door opens and closes.
I don’t move. I count my breaths—in, out, in, out—and wait for the elevator chime that will confirm he’s actually gone, that this isn’t some cruel test to see if I’ll come running after him.
The chime sounds. The silence that follows is complete.
He’s gone.
I should feel relieved. This is what I wanted, after all. When this started, I would have given anything to be free of Erik Nilsson. The forced matching, the cohabitation, the heat—it was all supposed to be a means to an end. Ellie’s treatment. One year of my life traded for her chance at survival. The exchange rate was brutal but clear.
Somewhere along the way, the math got complicated.
I get up from the bed and walk out into the main room. The space feels bigger than it should, stretched somehow, like the walls have retreated while I wasn’t looking. His laptop is gone from the kitchen counter. His jacket no longer hangs by the door. The coffee mug he used every morning has been placed back in the cabinet.
The apartment is exactly as it was before he moved in, except for all the ways it isn’t.
His scent is everywhere. It’s woven into the couch cushions and the kitchen towels and the sheets I’ll have to wash before I can sleep in them again. I can smell him on my own skin, even though I have showered every single day since my heat.
We had five days of his hands on me. His mouth on me. His body covering mine while I fell apart again and again, trusting him to put me back together.
And then that look in his eyes when he came home from that meeting. Like all of it had been a lie and I was the one who told it.
I don’t understand.
Or maybe I do, and that’s worse. Maybe Erik Nilsson was always exactly who I thought he was from the beginning—an alpha who takes what he wants and discards it when he’s done. Maybe the tenderness during my heat was just him playing a role that had nothing to do with genuine feeling. Maybe I’m the idiot.
The cold version of him is the one that makes sense. The CEO who stole my research, who built his fortune on my work, who looked at me so coolly across that ridiculous wedding. That Erik I understand.
It’s the other one I can’t reconcile. The one who held me through the worst of the heat. The one who kissed me like I was something precious. The one who traced patterns on my skin in the early morning light and looked at me like maybe, impossibly, he was feeling something too.
Two people in one body. And somehow I fell for the wrong one. I fell for the one who doesn’t actually exist.
I pull out my phone and compose an email to the Bureau.
To whom it may concern: I am writing to confirm that Erik Nilsson and I have completed the mandatory two-week cohabitation period as required by our matching agreement. Please advise whether any additional compliance requirements apply. Nolan West.
I hit send before I can second-guess myself.
I shower until the hot water runs cold, scrubbing at my skin like I can wash away the memory of his touch. It doesn’t work. He’s still there, imprinted on me in ways I can’t reach.
Hazel knows something is wrong the moment I walk into the coffee shop. I was due back today, supposedly after my honeymoon and I should be glowing.
“Oh, honey.” She catches my arm before I can escape behind the counter, her eyes scanning my face with the particular intensity of someone who’s known me long enough to read every crack in my armor. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” I reach for an apron, grateful for something to do with my hands. “Just tired. Heat took a lot out of me.”
“Bullshit.” She doesn’t raise her voice—the morning rush is just starting and there are customers to consider—but the word lands hard. “You look like someone died. Or worse. Did that alpha do something to you?”
The concern in her voice makes my throat tight. I focus on tying the apron strings behind my back, willing myself not to fall apart in the middle of my workplace.