Chapter 2
TWO
TRINITY
My liquor cabinet is calling my name.
It has also left several voicemails and might be cyberstalking me.
After cancelling the rest of my day and going home early, I managed to get halfway through a bottle of cabernet before my brain could catch up with me.
I slouch deeper into my cream-colored sofa, surrounded by the wreckage of my afternoon panic spiral.
Bridal magazines fan out across my coffee table like crime scene photos.
Fabric swatches in blush and champagne tones spill from their folders.
Look books for exotic destination weddings mock me from every surface of my immaculate living room.
“Immaculate until today,” I mutter, surveying the chaos I’ve created in my Carrie Bradshaw-inspired brownstone on the Upper East Side. Sex and the City reruns were my lifeblood as a kid, and I always dreamed of being one of the sexy, independent women I saw on television.
The irony that Ms. Bradshaw’s famous brownstone was actually in the West Village is not lost on me .
I twist the stem of my wineglass, watching the wine catch the light. Glass number three? Four? Fuck it, who’s counting?
A Heat Island brochure sits open on my lap, its glossy pages showcasing pristine white beaches, infinity pools overlooking turquoise waters, and honeymoon suites that cost more per night than my monthly mortgage payment.
On any other day, landing a wedding at Heat Island would have me dancing around this apartment, calling every industry contact I have just to brag.
Six weeks to plan a Heat Island wedding, I think as I blow my nose and crumple another tissue, adding it to the growing pile beside me. For my baby sister. With my three ex-fiancés.
I grab my phone and pull up the photos Josephine sent. There they are—Egret, Brendin, and Saren. Still gorgeous. Still successful. Presumably still annoying ass alphas to their very core.
They could practically have their pick of any woman they wanted, and they chose my sister.
Josephine is beautiful, sweet and uncomplicated. Everything I’m not. The little girl inside me, who has never quite been good enough, understands completely.
See , that sad little voice whispers. Just like we always thought .
I flash back to that final fight.
Egret: “You’re impossible to take care of, Trinity. An omega should want to be provided for.”
Then Brendin: “Your career will always come first. That’s not how this is supposed to work.”
And finally, Saren: “I need someone who’ll be waiting at home, not the party girl who wants to be out all night.”
Working , I want to scream at the echo of his voice in my head. I was out all night working. Club promotion was how I got enough experience to land my internship in college.
I throw my phone across the couch and it bounces into a pile of fabric samples for a client appointment tomorrow. My career. Always my career. The thing I built from nothing, the thing that gives me purpose and pride and financial independence. The thing that apparently makes me unlovable.
“I could just say no,” I tell the wedding cake catalogue mocking me from the end table. “Tell Josephine I’m too busy.”
But my sister would never forgive me. She looked so happy today, so excited. And besides, turning down this job would look like I still care about alphas I haven’t thought about in years. Like I’m still hurting. Like they still matter.
“I could claim a scheduling conflict. Maybe something for a big corporate client with an emergency event.”
But Josephine knows my schedule better than I do sometimes. She’d see through that in a heartbeat.
And what am I going to do—miss my baby sister’s shotgun wedding? My family would never let me live it down.
I pick up the Heat Island brochure again, running my fingers over the embossed lettering.
This resort is the crown jewel of destination weddings.
Celebrities, royalty, titans of industry—they all flock there for privacy and luxury.
Having a Heat Island wedding in my portfolio would open doors I’ve been knocking on for years.
Maybe this could work if I approach this strictly professionally. There isn’t anything stopping me from treating them like any other clients. Keep it strictly business.
But will they? Or is this some elaborate game to them? Some way to prove they made the right choice by rejecting me?
In a move as crazy as I feel, I grab my laptop and pull up their social media profiles.
The investment firm that they founded after business school has quintupled in size.
They have real estate projects in Dubai and Singapore that were just announced this year.
According to Business Today, they single-handedly insured the successful IPO of some tech start-up I’ve literally never heard of before today.
My jaw drops when I see a number with ten zeroes behind it.
It barely even makes sense that they’re packed up to begin with. Sure, it makes finding an omega easier, but you’d think three egos this big would be enough to suck all the oxygen out of any given room.
They always wanted a traditional omega, and Josephine has always been destined for pack life, just like our mother.
Everyone is happy.
And here I am, surrounded by wedding samples, alone on a Friday night.
My phone buzzes on the table
JosieGrossie: have you started brainstorming yet? im thinking lavender and blush for colors
I’m the wedding planner and I don’t even know what color blush is supposed to be. A particularly pretentious shade of pink, maybe?
I stare at the message, my finger hovering over the reply field. What do I say? That I spent the afternoon drinking and crying over men who dumped me years ago? That I’m terrified of facing them again, of having them see exactly how much I haven’t changed ?
The truth hits me like a cold cock to the left tit. That’s what I’m really afraid of. Not seeing them again, but having them see me. Still single. Still career-obsessed. Still proving them right.
Maybe I could just delegate one of my employees to handle the details and stay behind the scenes. Hide out in the wedding party and do my best to stay on the other side of the room for any wedding-related activities.
But that would be admitting defeat before the battle even starts. And if there’s one thing Trinity Jones doesn’t do, it’s admit defeat.
My home is filled with beautiful things that I chose and paid for myself. The walls of my downtown office are hung with awards, accolades, and news write-ups of my work in the society pages. I have a whole scrapbook of thank-you cards from satisfied clients.
This life is something I built without making a single compromise of who I am.
Maybe I’m still single because I refused to be someone I’m not. Maybe that’s not a failure at all.
I take a deep breath and text Josephine back:
TrinTrin: Thinking lavender and champagne might be a more elegant combo. Let’s talk tomorrow
Then, I open a new document on my laptop and title it: “Operation Wedding Survival.” If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it my way. With boundaries. With professionalism. With my dignity intact.
One more message pings my phone.
JosieGrossie: Sounds grt! I need the name of your plus one ASAP, btw. still dating that beta journalist, maybe?
Ah, hell.
I text back a quick thumbs up and then set my phone on do-not-disturb.
I lie to my sister all the time.
Little white lies, like telling her I’m totally winning, thanks girlie when I’m actually drowning in impossible deadlines. Or saying her banana bread is the best I’ve ever tasted when it’s consistently undercooked in the middle.
But this lie feels different. Bigger. More devastating.
Or just devastatingly pathetic.
I grab my phone again and stare at my last message to Josephine. A thumbs up. A digital confirmation of a boyfriend who no longer exists.
Fantastic. Now, all I need to do is manifest a wedding date out of thin air.
The truth is, Jason the beta and I broke up almost a month ago. It wasn’t dramatic—no plates thrown, no screaming matches. He simply said he felt like I was “emotionally unavailable” and that my work always came first. Same old story.
I didn’t tell Josephine because I couldn’t bear to see that look on her face. That mixture of pity and well, what do you expect that comes with being the perpetually single sister. The one who can’t seem to keep a man because she refuses to make herself smaller.
The wine bottle sits empty on my coffee table, mocking me. I need more alcohol to process this new layer of humiliation .
I push myself off the couch, stumbling slightly as I make my way to the kitchen.
As I reach for a new bottle of cabernet from my wine rack, something on the counter catches my eye. A small booklet with a sleek black cover, emblazoned with silver lettering: Elite Comfort Services: Heat-Breaker Scent Profiles.
What the hell? I pick it up, confused about how it got there. Then it hits me—the cleaning service I hired last week must have found it wedged behind a piece of furniture and put it out for me to find.
I flip through the pages, each containing a small scent swatch—the olfactory equivalent of a dating profile. Alpha scents, categorized by notes and undertones. Sandalwood and citrus. Cedar and pine. Leather and tobacco.
Boring.
The matchmaking service. God, I thought I’d thrown this away months ago.
Elite Comfort Services. A discreet, high-end matchmaking service that pairs unmated omegas with what they euphemistically call heat-breakers .
An otherwise loaded term for alphas without mates of their own who help omegas through their heat cycles without any expectation of a relationship afterward.
It’s a perfectly respectable arrangement for omegas, less so for the alphas who are basically admitting they’re second rate. Practical. Clinical, almost.
Except my last session with a heat-breaker was anything but clinical.
His scent profile had been marked as rustic pine .
The description had been accurate—devastatingly so, it still might be the best thing I’ve ever smelled—but hadn’t done him justice.
That scent of forest had been overlaid with cinnamon and wood smoke, he smelled like sipping apple cider around a campfire in autumn.
A scent book also couldn’t capture the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. How his hands were calloused but gentle. How he asked about my day and actually seemed interested in my answer.
After my heat with him ended, I’d done something I’ve never done before: I called the service and asked for his contact information. I wanted to see him again, outside the parameters of our arrangement. Or even just set up a repeat performance for my next heat, at the very least.
The service representative had been polite but firm: “I’m sorry, Ms. Jones, but the alpha has indicated he does not wish to be contacted by clients outside of scheduled appointments. And he is currently not available for future heat-breaking sessions.”
Translation: He’s really just not that into you.
I might have been convinced he was my scent-match if it hadn’t been so easy for him to walk away afterwards. Clearly, I wouldn’t know a scent-match if he fucked me for three days straight and never called again.
Considering that’s precisely what happened.
I should have thrown the scent booklet away that day, especially after I decided to go on the strongest heat suppressants on the market and try dating betas exclusively for a while. Instead, I’d apparently shoved it away somewhere in my apartment and forgotten about it.
The memory of my missed connection isn’t one I want to revisit.
Even though it’s hard to ignore how these suppressants make everything smell a little like bleach and make me bloat like a pufferfish. Taking them means I’ll never find a scent match, assuming one even exists, but also that I can delay my next heat cycle indefinitely.
It helps that the alpha I thought could be my scent match never wants to see me again.
Since Jason and I broke it off, my favorite vibrator—the one with the knot attachment and seven pulse settings—and I have been very happy together.
I pour myself another glass of wine and lean against the counter, flipping through the scent profiles again. Each one represents an alpha who’s willing to help an omega through their most vulnerable time with no strings attached.
And then, like a lightning bolt, an idea strikes me.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, wine sloshing dangerously close to the rim of my glass. “That’s it.”
I don’t need a real boyfriend for Josephine’s wedding.
I need a professional.
Someone so professional that they’ll have no problem playing like I’m the most amazing woman in the world. That would show Egret and the others just how much I haven’t thought of them since the day we broke up.
My fingers fumble for my phone, scrolling through my contacts until I find the number for Elite Comfort Services. It’s nearly midnight, but they advertise 24/7 availability for omega emergencies.
If this doesn’t qualify as an emergency, then I don’t know what does.