The words coated my tongue, leaving a stinking residue in their path, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret them. His face went white as milk, and he released his grip on my wrist, throwing it back into my lap before his focus turned to the window. We both watched the dark buildings pass, over and over, until we arrived home.
I stood before the mirror in my room, able to dress and apply my armour of makeup, couture, and expensive jewellery with a speed that would have shocked most. But this was all I was trained to do, to be, so when I looked into the mirror, the bad girl was gone and there was only Katherine Greyson. She was the one who walked down the steps and into the library, a social smile applied as I entered the room.
“Kit, darling!” Greta Chadwick, matriarch of the Chadwick clan, said as she sailed over, taking my hands in hers. “We missed you!”
Dad stared at me from where he was clustered with some of the older Chadwick men, his eyes burning into my skin.
“I turned my phone off, not down,” I said, suitably chastened. “I’m so sorry. I feel like such an idiot, making Theo have to go fetch me when I was needed here.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” she said, patting my hand and drawing me along with her. “We all know young omegas can be flighty things. Now, that portrait of you, my dear. I always knew he was talented, my boy, but that piece.” She shook her head. “You know the Museum of Modern Art has been pestering him to sell it, but he won’t hear of it. I’ve been pushing him to make contact, to come and formally approach your father for permission to pursue you, but got nowhere until today.”
The woman stopped, her eyes glittering with so much I didn’t want to know or feel but was going to get anyway. That was what it was to be an omega—we were the recipients of everyone’s…junk. Their expectations, emotions, needs, and wants, it all pummelled us until someone, some alpha, stepped up and screened it all out, reducing the onslaught down to what was wanted, what was needed.
“This is written in the stars,” she said, with one last pat of the hand. “I know it. Omega girls are all milksops, not ones that would entice my James. But you…”
Her voice faded away as her James found my eyes across the library floor, skipping over the first edition books and the bronze sculptures and antiques that had been in our family since before the Greysons emigrated to Australia, and settled on me. His lips twitched, like he’d smile, but for some reason, he stopped himself. I knew why.
Those warm eyes were ones that, at any other point in time, I would have been honoured to drop deep into. If I’d never met Tris, never broken my own heart and remade it inextricably linked to his, James would indeed have been perfect. Instead, he was just another unwitting means used by my family to control me.
“Ready?” Greta asked me. I nodded. “Maybe pinch your cheeks a little, sweetheart. You’re looking awfully pale.”
I did so dutifully, knowing no one said no to Greta Chadwick, even if she wasn’t using her alpha bark. She didn’t need to. Social expectations and hierarchy were all set up to bring an added weight to her commands that meant she probably never raised her voice ever.
“Perfect. Such a beautiful little omega,” she said and then swept me forward.
Chapter 17
“Kit…”
This was all wrong, so very wrong. I’d grown up reading period romances, captivated by meet-cutes where the headstrong omega finally met her match in the rakish alpha, his philandering ways coming to a screeching halt as he breathed the name of his soon to be intended. James, fucking gorgeous James, did exactly that, stepping free of the cluster of his family. Dear god, had every bloody Chadwick in the city descended on my father’s house? He put his glass of Scotch down, probably from a bottle sold to us by Len, and then swept forward, taking my hands in his and giving them a squeeze. They felt warm, strong, and my stupid omega brain couldn’t help but imagine exactly what they could be used for. Drawing beautiful sketches of me naked, yes, but then…? Then he’d step closer, rip open the buttons of his shirt as he… James’ fingers tightened around mine as he just stared and stared, studying my face, searching for something.
“Look at them,” a deep masculine voice said. “We’ll be talking about this on their wedding day. Completely bloody speechless. I was the same with my Annie.”
That seemed to break the spell that had somehow been cast. James smiled ruefully, and I found myself echoing him.
“Can we…? Let’s take a turn around the room, shall we?” he said, his tone making it clear that he thought himself no Mr Darcy, but that he’d use the same time-honoured techniques to get us out of the current spotlight. I just nodded, and then relief came as he tucked my arm in his, escorting us out of the crush and over towards one of the large windows in a darkened area of the room.
“I have to apologise.”
OK, that was weird. Alphas didn’t do that, but I quietly waited for him to explain.
“After today… I’ve wanted to make contact for so long, see if you were interested in going out sometime, but…” He looked over his shoulder, where half his family and most of mine seemed to be surreptitiously watching us. “But it’s never that simple, is it?” I didn’t reply, even as he waited for me to do so. “When I saw you today, Kit…”
He shifted until he was in my line of sight, claiming my attention, because of course he did. Bohemian set or not, he was still an alpha from a venerable family, and this was his due. I dut
ifully met his gaze, focussing on the plane of his right cheekbone, a trick we all learned when alphas stared us down. It gave the illusion of eye contact without it hurting so much, but there was a reason why I was especially cranky.
It wasn’t just that I’d been ripped away from the person I cared about and others who I might. It wasn’t just the lack of freedom, that family members could dictate how and where I went. My eyes flicked up for a second and seemed to take in every shade of brown, amber, russet in the depths of his eyes before they dropped down again to the much safer planes of his face. The humour, the warmth, the infinite curiosity there, it sucked me in more surely than any of the usual alpha posturing of the men my father found suitable.
“I wanted to get you on your own so we could have a chance to chat,” he said in a very low voice, needing to step closer so I could hear him, but that just made it worse. I was an omega teetering on the edge of frenzy, and James? His thumbs rubbed against the backs of my hands, that sweep taking almost my entire attention, my body letting me know exactly what those slightly callused hands could do.
“I…I should’ve checked in with you, said something, but I admit, I was a little flustered today when I saw my parents. You’d just walked out, and for some reason, it took every fucking muscle in my body to prevent myself from stopping you. And walking out with another alpha…”
I heard his teeth grind for a second, a long whistle of breath escaping from between them.
“If he’s who you want, if my attentions are unwanted, just let me know, Kit. Honestly, I do not want to be one of those fucking dickheads who pester an omega and pressure her family through their social connections to make a match. I know mine obviously didn’t get that memo, having come out in a show of force, but, Kit…”
My eyes jerked up and met his. I knew that was required now by the tone of his voice, and sure enough, when we locked gazes, I saw it. Desire, yeah, that was a given. I was an omega of the right social class and I was pretty enough to warrant it, but that wasn’t what caught my attention.