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He was already touching her.
The world blacked out. I couldn’t remember leaving the room, only vaguely heard the shouts of people as I leaped over railings and deck chairs. The ship was a haze of red, white, and gold, blurring as I ran faster.
He had touched my Sunshine.Mine!The word echoed inside my skull. As I reached for the handle of the dining room door, intent on murdering the alpha who dared approach my omega, it opened abruptly.
I stumbled back just as Alphonse came storming out. “Fucking bitch,” he spat, wiping at something on his front. I had a handful of his tacky gold chains wadded in my fists before he could say another word.
“What did you do to her?” Something squelched under my fingers, and I smelled a revolting odor. Like scrambled eggs, coffee, and vomit? “Fuck’s sake, man, what the hell is this?”
“That bitch threw up on me.” He jerked away, his cheap chains coming loose in my hand. I flung them back at his reddened face.
Suddenly, Lorelei was there at his side. “Gio, let go of him! Who did this, Fons?”
“The betasitter,” he said with a huff. “I was just trying to get some coffee. The bi—” His eyes flew to my face, and he broke off. “I need a shower, honey.” My sister fussed over him, taking him back toward their cabin.
“Is Soleil sick?” Sylvia stood beside me, dressed like a tiny mourner at a funeral, as usual. Her gaze was on Alphonse, her small white teeth bared. “Is she okay?”
“I’ll go check. Stay out here.” She nodded and slunk back to a deck chair beneath an umbrella. There was a stack of what looked like napkins on the poolside table, and for some reason, she and two boys around her age were folding them into odd shapes.
I pushed the door open, taking in the scene.The room was empty, except for a waiter who was cleaning up something on a bench by the window. He noticed me when I grabbed a stray napkin to clean my hands, but before he could greet me, I held a finger to my lips. Soleil’s voice filtered through the door to the galley, and I walked quietly back, listening just outside.
“... if they teach one thing in the Omega League, Juliette, it’s how to deal with alphas.”
The chef who had worked for me for eight years, and had never once allowed me into her kitchen, or spoken to me with anything but a sneer, laughed. “Ma petite ange, you cannot tell me they teach you to vomit on alphas who come too close!”
Soleil’s laughter joined hers. “No. In fact, we recently had a lesson in hownotto throw up around alphas who smell bad. But that guy, Alphonse? He stinks like—”
“Rotten cabbages in the sun,” Juliette finished for her.
“You can smell him? But you’re a beta.”
“I may not be an omega like you,ma belle, but we chefs have noses almost as keen.” Their voices dropped to near whispers. “Have you ever smelled an alpha whose scent you liked?”
“Liked? No,” Soleil replied.
I sucked in a breath. Why would that word feel like a knife stabbing into my gut, creating a wound that would never heal? She didn’t like my scent. But the night before, she had responded as if… Had she been pretending, like Zoe had all those years ago? I turned to go, but Soleil’s soft voice stopped me.
“Butloved? Yeah.”
“Loved? Oh, sweet one. I know that look. Like you are lost and found all at once. Your world shaken, and your feet off the ground. You are in love?”
“No.” Soleil gave a sigh loud enough to carry all the way to me. “Not love.”
Juliette cursed in French. “Ah, I have seen this before, one time, long ago. You have found your true mate,oui?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But yesterday… You know how you have a favorite scent in the world? Like one thing, and if that was the only smell you were ever allowed, it would be just fine? That’s what that alphahole Grumpy Grantham smells like to me. A mocha latte, with just the right amount of dark chocolate.” My heart almost stopped beating as she moaned, “Yummmmm. But it’s not fair. He’s such a giant douchebag; he’s probably ruined my favorite drink forever.”
Wait.I wasn’t a douchebag. I only acted that way to keep people from taking advantage. And where did she get off, calling me that? Disrespectful wench.
Juliette laughed. “Ma petite, that alpha—you say alphahole, yes?—that alphahole is far too old for you.Andtoo grumpy. Though you could loosen him up with some olive oil, maybe, and this lemon reamer?”
“Oh, that’s mean, Juliette! He could get a splinter in his chocolate starfish. Though the idea has merit…”
I bristled at the laughter that spilled out the door as I pulled it open.“Chef Jul—” My voice broke off as I took in the scene before me.
Soleil stood in a mismatched bathing suit, a flowered top and a bottom that was no more than strands of shimmering gold dental floss attached to a piece of fabric the size of a condom wrapper. And nothing else.
Thank god she and Juliette were the only two in the room. If a man had been in there, I would have scooped his eyeballs out of his head with a grapefruit spoon.
