“You, what? Decided to march in here without so much as a by your leave, to what purpose? Order my sister around to complete the inane assignments my father sets you?”
Cress had become a fully fledged lawyer only a year ago, and it showed. Her crisp tone and razor-sharp accusations cut through Helen’s bullshit in a way I would never be able to imitate.
“My sister is no different to any other member of the family, irrespective of her designation or what my father says. Get out.”
“What? But I have to…”
“Get. Out!”
Helen had balls—I’d give her that. She hovered for a moment, then the thin line of her mouth faltered and a loud huff escaped her. She turned and stalked out of the room without saying a word.
“Kit, what the hell was that?”
“Tristan rang and woke me up. We were talking when Helen decided to barge in, then demanded access to my phone.”
“Talking?” Her eyebrow jerked up. Cress was too damn smart for Dad. She knew the deal between the two of us, even if she didn’t understand it.
“Talking. I can show you my recent calls.”
“As long as it wasn’t video, you can do what you like.” She shot me a sympathetic look. “I know this must be hard for you. I wish I…” Silence fell in the space between us, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable one. “Well, I can deal with officious bitches like Helen though. I’ll speak to Dad, tell him to go and see Fifi if he wants to get his twenty-something beta on.”
“I said I’d hire her for a session tonight and have her waiting in his bed if Helen didn’t fuck off.”
“You didn’t!” Cress tried for scandalised, but her grin said otherwise. “Well, good for you. God knows playing nice never got anyone anywhere here.” Now the silence became denser, less comfortable. “Mum, she’s in fine form again.”
“Of course she is—the season has started. Has Dad told her she’s not to attend anything?” I asked
“He has.”
“And is she going to listen?”
Cress’ eyes rolled my way, then a tiny shake of her head told me exactly what I needed to know.
“You can use it to your advantage, I guess. Nothing drives away society mamas like Mother.”
I smiled then, wide and toothy, then tightened the tie around my waist.
“I may just take your advice there.”
Chapter 9
“Kit, James Chadwick is having a floor talk, and we’ve been invited,” Cress had said over breakfast, still looking through our social calendar. “We don’t have to go, but—”
“No, I want to go. He asked us before to come and talk to some university students he’d invited to the gallery. They’ve included our piece in the survey show he’s holding.”
For a second, I saw it—the moment we sat for James. He’d wound a spell over Tristan and me when we attended a gallery opening a few years ago, and persuaded us to sit for him. Well, us and Theo. My brother had lurked around, suitably looking the grumpy alpha, until James started working on him too. Then the two of us had been escorted to his studio one lazy Sunday morning to stand before him, naked and staring into each other’s eyes, while the white light bathed us. It had all been very romantic for the first fifteen minutes, then the aches set in.
“Hold the position,” James had said with a strange kind of alpha bark, more a forceful suggestion, his voice and focus on us but not on us. His pencil tore across the page, blocking our shapes in, then adding more detail. But to get that detail, we had to stay still, so still. Thankfully, we were positioned staring into each other’s eyes, and that was when it happened.
In silly alpha-omega romances, they called it the soul stare, where the rutting alpha stops his or her sexual onslaught, stares into the eyes of their omega, and then sees them—the one, their mate, the omega they would tie themselves to for eternity. Usually, their heat would break, and then they would choose each other, the little omega baring their neck to the alpha, ready to be claimed.
Well, I couldn’t bare my neck to Tristan, though we’d played with it at times. He’d nipped my skin bloody and I’d done the same with him when we were together, but it never resolved anything. The bites would heal over, stubbornly refusing to scar, and then we’d be left staring at each other, needing the other person so damn much, it took our breath away, our teeth ached with it, but with never any
fucking resolution. I stared at Tristan, and he stared at me.
I might have traced the abrupt shape of his face, those perilously high cheekbones, the savage cast of it softened by a pair of overly full lips, but pretty omegas were a dime a dozen. Later, we realised that was what should’ve cued us into what he would become. He was always way too beautiful for his own good, but what was happening, this weird sinking into each other, it came, not because he was nice to look at, but due to something else entirely.
Every significant memory I had, each one worth a damn, had him in it. Growing up in my house sometimes felt like some unofficial episode of The Hunger Games, where Dad tried to pit us against each other and we refused, in our different ways, to play. Tris, he was outside all of that. Dad ignored him, Mum sniped at him, but largely, he was left alone, as he was part of the ‘help.’