Page 64 of Omega's Formula

I’m in my home office at the penthouse, trying to review contracts I’ve already reviewed twice, when I hear the front door open. For one absurd moment my heart lurches—

“Erik? Are you home?”

Not Nolan. Of course not Nolan. Why would Nolan be here, using a key I never gave him, walking into my penthouse? Obviously, it wasn’t him.

Office,” I call back, and my voice comes out steadier than I feel.

Anna appears in the doorway a moment later. Her expression shifts from casual greeting to sharp concern in the space between one breath and the next.

“Jesus, Erik. What happened to you?”

I glance down at myself. I’m in yesterday’s shirt, wrinkled from sleeping in it. There’s a coffee stain near my hip. It didn’t matter when I spilled it this morning. I wasn’t planning on going out today anyway. I haven’t shaved since... when? I can’t actually recall.

Okay, I admit to myself, I’m not as put together as I usually am.

“I’m fine.”

“You look like death warmed over.” She crosses the room and perches on the edge of my desk, studying me with the particular intensity of someone who’s known me my entire life. “And you’re wearing yesterday’s clothes, which means you either didn’t sleep or you slept in them, and neither of those options is ‘fine.’”

“Anna—”

“The cohabitation ended. I know. Sara mentioned you’ve been working insane hours since you got back. She’s worried. I’ve been giving you space, but clearly that was a mistake.” She leans forward. “What happened with the omega?”

“Nothing happened.” The lie scrapes my throat. “The cohabitation ended, and now we’re done. That was always the plan.”

“Erik.” Her voice softens. “I’ve never seen you like this. Even when Dad died, you were…functioning. This is different.”

I want to tell her she’s imagining things. I want to pull rank as her older brother and shut down this conversation before it goes any further.

Instead, to my own horror, I hear myself saying: “Alistair Wallace brought me a recording.”

Anna goes very still. “Who’s Alistair Wallace? A recording of what?”

“Alistair Wallace is Nolan’s ex-fiancé. He’s the one we bought the research from.”

“Go on.”

“It was from a few years ago, apparently. Wallace recorded him. Nolan was drinking, upset about how things ended between them.” I pause, struggling to keep my voice even. “He admitted everything on tape. He said he made up the accusations against me because he was angry. Nolan West is a liar and a con man. Exactly as we thought he was.”

The words sit between us, heavy and ugly. Anna is quiet for a long moment.

“His voice?” she finally asks. “You’re sure it was his voice?”

“I know his voice, Anna.” Better than I want to. Better than I should, after only two weeks. “It was him.”

She nods slowly, processing. “Okay. So you’ve been vindicated, and the omega has been exposed as a liar, and everything is resolved.”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you look like you’ve just been to hell and back?”

Because I was starting to love him.The thought surfaces before I can stop it, raw and terrible and true. Because I wasfalling for him, and I thought he was falling for me too, and finding out it was all a game is somehow worse than if we’d never connected at all.

I don’t say any of that. I can’t.

“I started to trust him.” The admission feels like pulling glass from a wound. “During the heat. Before. He was... not what I expected. And I let myself believe that maybe we could make something real out of this arrangement.” I laugh, and it comes out hollow. “I feel like an idiot. Like I walked into a con with my eyes open and still managed to get played.”

“You’re not an idiot.” Anna’s voice is firm. “You gave someone a chance.”