Page 65 of Omega’s Forward

“Pretty sure of it. He’s said and I quote, ‘I’ll walk every damned street in that city to find him if I have to.’”

My stomach flips over. Again.

But Priya doesn’t know that. She continues, oblivious. “And Belanger has just forwarded me a leave request. And the word ‘request’ there is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Apparently, he just told Belanger he was taking off. No actual request. The reason is a family emergency. There’s a 9:05 direct flight tonight. I suspect he’ll be on it.”

I lean against the counter. My stomach turns over, and it isn’t the baby. I don’t know what to say.

Then, because Priya has never in her life left a loose end: “Do you want me to arrange anything at this end? A hotel for him?”

“No. I’ll deal with it.”

“Okay, and Everett?”

“Yeah?”

“You need anything, just ask.”

The tired part of me, the one that doesn’t like letting people in, is tempted to reply with, “That’s what I pay you for,” but that’s not what she means and we both know it.

“Thanks, Priya. I appreciate that.”

I also want to ask her what he looked like. I don’t. I say goodbye and put the phone face down on the counter and stand there for far too long staring into space.

The obvious thing to do is nothing.

He doesn’t have my address. All he has, apparently, is a great deal of confidence.

He won’t find me and he can’t stay forever. Sooner or later, he’ll give up and go home.

That’ll be the easiest for me.

It’s also the most cowardly, but I’m not sure what to do. I don’t want to see him.

Actually, that’s a dirty lie. I do want to see him. I don’t want to want to see him.

The baby means that I’ve been given no real choice. For better or worse, Callahan is my child’s father and I’m going to have to deal with that.

I don’t always go into the office, but today it feels like a good idea. Having people around and inane office chatter seems like it’ll distract me from the man who is on his way now toward me.

It doesn’t. Instead, I’m the one who’s distracted. It’s a complete waste of a day and I get barely anything done.

I go home instead, run a bath and think about Brody Callahan wheeling his suitcase through the crowds at Heathrow, sniffing the air like a bloodhound.

When I get out, I dry off and pull on a T-shirt that sits snugger across the middle than it used to. I lie in bed and run my hands over the curve of my belly.

I never imagined getting pregnant. I know a lot of omegas dream of it, but I never have.

It’s not that I’m against having children. Somehow, it’s simply not something that I’ve ever thought about.

I think about it now. I don’t know if it’s hormones or something else, but I want this one. Something inside me is so fiercely protective of it that I can’t stand it.

I’m not putting my baby through the endless cycle of desperate approval and rejections that my father put me through.

It’s not going to happen. And I don’t care about its designation. I’ll love him or her, whether they’re alpha, omega or beta.

At half past one I’m still awake.

At two I get up and stand on the terrace in the cold with my phone in my hand. The river is black. A single barge goes down on the tide with one lamp lit at the stern.