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It’s him.
“Tilly,” he said, taking my hand and brushing his lips over the knuckles, and I was sure he closed his eyes and inhaled. He dropped my hand and closed in on my cheek. “I hear you are exceptional at your job.” His lips brushed my earlobe as he left his scent and heat on my skin.
Don’t react.
Though that was damn hard when the touch of his skin was hot and as I watched him run his thumb over my wrist, I didn’t know if it was absent minded or deliberate, but it was a controlled movement and I predicted he was the same.
He dropped my hand, test passed, and internally I thanked my suppressants for doing their job, at least to hide me from him.
“I try to do my best,” I said when I found my voice.
“You are too modest Tilly,” Sandy cooed. “But less of the job. This is Cruz, the third partner in the company. Cruz is more of a silent partner. He prefers to work from home.”
Cruz... where have I heard that name before?
I nodded, lowering my eyes and picking up my napkin, rubbing it through my thumb and fingers. The soft tissue was silky as I ran my fingers over the material. Any distraction to stop me from raising my eyes to Cruz.
“Tilly,” the voice ahead said, his voice velvet soft and inviting like he was enticing me to him. I shook off those thoughts and glanced through my eyelashes and Jackson was staring from me to the tissue.
“Excuse me,” I said, pushing my seat out and rose from the chair. I strode away and quickly plucked the mobile from my purse. “Hello,” I said. “Mmm, okay, I’ll come home now.” I hit the power off button.
Swallowing as I pushed my mobile back into my purse and zipped it up, I ambled back to the table. I smiled at Sandy and briefly to the alphas.
“Everything okay?” Sandy asked.
I pushed my shoulders back, smiled at each of the men. I deserved an Oscar for my stellar acting skills because inside I was melting.
“Sorry, I need to leave. My mu...” I stuttered, glancing at Cruz. “My friend needs me.” I hoped my tone was believable, but as they smirked, I felt they knew.
“The car is waiting to take you home,” Sandy called.
Before I left, I nodded, but didn’t look at Cruz, Luca, or Jackson.
I just left, not turning back.
I held my arm high and flagged the first beta-taxi that passed. The green cab pulled alongside and I jumped in before I could change my mind and get in the Bentley waiting at the kerbside. The one I was almost ordered to get into, but I couldn’t do that, not now. He had finally shown himself to me and regardless of anything; I didn’t want him to know where I lived.
I pulled my mobile out of my purse and scrolled my contacts for Isla. We were two of a kind and had been best friends now for nearly three years. She failed Omega College and, as a last resort, she was supposed to go to the Omega Ball and present herself. Her parents wanted her off their hands. Isla did them a favour and ran away from home. She wasn’t ready to find her alpha or a pack.
My cousin Blair had her pack, and it was love. But it wasn’t the same for my sister. A pack came for her that night. I don’t truly know if they were her pack. They stole her before she was to be presented at the Omega Ball two days later.
It was my father’s fault, lording her over the newspapers and the media. His precious daughter Georgie was supposed to be the star of the show that year. She was the Prima Omega.
I went along with Georgie and my father to one meeting she had, not quite understanding what was really happening. My father loved it, my mother detested it.
“This nice man is someone you will dance with at the Ball, Georgie,” Dad said, taking my sister’s hands as her eyes flashed over the guy’s face. Georgie’s face was aghast. The guy was at least double her age.
Georgie nodded. Though she wouldn’t do anything other than nod, not with Daddy being there. We knew who was in charge. He’d told us often enough. I cowered from the man as he turned to me with a smile. “How many years will it be for you to be at the Ball?”
“She hasn’t shown yet.” Father turned his attention back to Georgie as I lowered my head and pretended to eat my food.
It was the moment I really took in everything Mum was trying to tell me. I confided in her what happened, and afterwards we shared a secret.
Mum and dad argued, and there was a formidable battle. And my sister and I were in the middle, but I was better off than she was. Mum knew I was an omega. She’d already gone through the hormonal changes with Georgie. She recognised them, but started giving me tablets to hide my scent.
That was our secret.
My mother wanted me to live my own life.
I did.
She knew I wasn’t ready to be an omega, not like my sister. She was a true omega.
Luckily, Mum was a scientist, but she was secretly working on several projects to help omegas. Not to hide them forever, but she believed omegas presented much too early in life and put them at risk to older, more damaging alphas.
Though I wasn’t sure anything would stop those men. I knew once I stopped taking my suppressants, I would be in as much danger to an unruly alpha now at nearly twenty-three as I would have been when I was seventeen.
Omegas were naturally submissive, and no suppressant was going to change that. Not long term.
Not until I could work out the way I didn’t need to pop pills four to five times a day to prevent my scent from casting to an alpha or his masculine, woody scent to infiltrate my senses.
Because that was what Cruz’s scent was underneath, that sweet popcorn. But it was the three of them together, all their scents complimented the others, and all I wanted was to curl up inside the three of them and suck in their scents.
Oh, my god. I don’t.
