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Chapter1
Everleigh
“Are you sure she isn’t a Haven Academy girl?”
“I’m sure,” a younger woman responds in the same loud whisper. “She looks vaguely familiar, though, like I’ve seen her before but can’t place her.”
“Hmm. I wonder where Lawrence found her then. She hasn’t put a foot wrong all night.”
I tune out the women whispering, knowing they’re talking about me. The word ‘found’ hits me in my gut, though. She says found, but that isn’t even close to what happened.
“Everleigh?” Lawrence has a line between his brows. He’s noted my distraction and it will cost me later if I don’t make it up to him now. “I asked about the garden party next week.”
I give him my most apologetic smile. It’s not real, but it’s convincing. “I don’t think I fastened the ankle strap on my heel properly. I’m a little wobbly on my feet tonight.”
He urges me closer to his chest. Almost immediately, I choke, swallowing hard to open up my airways. I’ve been drowning in alpha pheromones all night, most of it Lawrence’s, and I drown in it some more. Tart cherry, black rum, and pepper make it impossible to breathe.
Lawrence has always liked to play the perfect alpha. On the surface, he is. Handsome, young, and wealthy enough to provide an omega with all the soft, snuggly things we crave.
I’m not the least bit surprised when he raises his voice above the violinist playing on our left, declaring, “I have you, Everleigh.”
From my right, a woman sighs. “Why can’t that be me?”
You can have him, wistful omega. I don’t want him.
“You’ll get your alpha, Melissa.”
“They’re all taken, Mother. All the nice-looking ones, anyway. Everyone knows Lawrence was the best of them.”
A pleased smile pulls on the corners of Lawrence’s lips as wistful omega’s envy soothes his irritation at my distraction. I bite back my need to scream, cry, or run. Maybe all three? My usual responses when Lawrence has me in his arms.
“Not all,” a woman mutters in a voice pitched low enough not to be overheard by any but her closest neighbors.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her subtle nod to the right of the ballroom. I peek the same way through my blonde lashes and glimpse three large men standing along one wall, a little apart from everyone. And then Lawrence is twirling me again.
All alphas are big, in the same way omegas are small, and betas are ordinary, but the men in that right corner seem larger than most.
“I meant the ones whowantto claim an omega, Mother. All the rest aren’t rich enough or good-looking enough,” wistful omega complains. “Andtheydon’t want to claim any omega, so stop shoving me at them. The one who looks like a lion glared at me like he wanted to maul me.”
The one who looks like…
Oh.
If I hadn’t run out of the birth control pills I stole from one of the servants months before, I’d risk asking Lawrence why the three alphas who never come to his parties came to this one. He might mistake my question as interest and I know exactly how that would go.
Running now won’t be easy. He’s already liable to hunt me down to the ends of the earth. But pregnant with his child? He wouldneverlet me go.
The three big alphas in the ballroom’s corner interest me the way they must interest everyone in this room. Even if no one would dare be caught staring at a party jam-packed with the city’s wealthiest families.
They are Pack Ashe. Owners of the billion-dollar company Ashe Investments. Completely self-made angel investors with a platinum touch.
They are also not Lawrence’s usual trust fund, spoiled, rich kid crowd.
Why did they come tonight?
I shake off the question. Curiosity has its time and place. That time is not now, and that place is when I’m far,faraway from Lawrence.
Lawrence dances us back to our original position on the dance floor. Probably so he can continue to eavesdrop on the same women fawning over him.
