Chapter 17 Miles #2
"Not tonight." I turn and put my hand on his jaw.
His skin is warm under my palm and his eyes search mine and I can see what he was going to say sitting right there behind his expression, waiting.
I know what it is. Pre-bonding. He's going to tell me what Devon told him and I can't hear it.
Not tonight. If he says the word out loud then I have to deal with it and tonight I just want to sit here and pretend that my body isn't making promises I can't keep.
"Miles—"
"I know," I say quietly. "I know what you're going to say. And I can't — not tonight. Please."
Something shifts in his expression. The realization that I already know. That I've known. He looks at me with those brown eyes and I can see the question he's not asking: if you know, why won't you talk about it?
"Okay," he says softly. His hand covers mine on his cheek. "Not tonight."
We stay on the couch until the wine is gone.
At some point I lean against his shoulder and he puts his arm around me and we watch something on his laptop that I don't pay attention to because his heartbeat is slow and steady under my ear and the pre-bond is so settled it feels like being drugged.
Heavy and safe and I could stay here forever.
We don't have sex. We end up in his bed — smaller than mine, sheets that don't match, a comforter that's too warm — and he wraps around me from behind and I fit against him in a way that shouldn't be as easy as it is.
His face is in my neck. His arm is around my waist. I hold his hand against my stomach the way I did at the resort and the echo of that night is so strong it almost breaks me.
I don't sleep for a long time. I lie in Ray's bed and listen to him breathe and I think about the pre-bond and the barrenness and the partnership and the thing I know is waiting for me at the firm tomorrow.
I think about this apartment — the messy kitchen and the thriving basil plant and the photo of Devon's family on the fridge.
I think about what this could look like in a year, five years.
Morning coffee and burnt eggs and my books on his shelf and his scent on my clothes and a life that's loud, lived-in.
And then I think about the other thing. The empty thing.
The calculation that runs in the background of every happy moment: you can't give him a family.
You can't do the thing his biology is wiring him to want.
Pre-bonding leads to bonding leads to nesting leads to — nothing.
A dead end. An omega whose body works perfectly except for the part that matters.
He holds me tighter in his sleep and I close my eyes and let him.
The next morning I'm in Richard's office at nine.
"Miles." Richard is behind his desk, folder open, reading glasses on. He looks up and smiles — genuine, the mentor who's championed my career for five years. "Excellent work on Whitfield-Crane. Shaw called me personally to compliment the team. That doesn't happen often."
"Thank you." I sit in the chair across from him and my posture is perfect and my hands are still.
"The partnership committee met yesterday." He removes his glasses. "You've been approved. Pending a few administrative details, the announcement will go out next month."
There it is. The thing I've been working toward since I was sixteen years old, lying in a hospital bed, deciding that if my body couldn't make me valuable, my brain would. Partner at McKenzie & Randall. The youngest in the firm's history. The proof that I'm not broken.
I feel nothing.
No. That's not true. I feel Ray's bed. I feel the weight of his arm around my waist and his apartment and the hum of the pre-bond and the taste of his pasta and the sound of his laugh when I insulted his garlic technique. I feel everything, and none of it is happening in this office.
"That's wonderful," I say. "Thank you, Richard."
"You've earned it." He puts his glasses back on, then takes them off again. The second removal is the tell — Richard is about to say something he doesn't want to say. "There is one matter. HR has flagged some concerns about your working relationship with Garcia."
The room gets very quiet.
"Jennifer Albright has documented the extended stay at the Linden conference, some observations from staff regarding your interactions, and the nature of your collaboration on the Whitfield case.
" Richard's voice is measured. Careful. "The committee needs to be satisfied that there's no conflict of interest before the announcement proceeds. "
"What are you asking me to do?"
"I'm asking you to resolve it." He meets my eyes. "Cleanly. Before the end of the month."
Resolve. Not end. Not sever. Resolve. He's giving me the word and letting me choose the definition, because Richard Aldridge has always been a man who builds in plausible deniability.
"I understand," I say.
"Miles." His voice is softer now. "You've worked too hard and come too far to let anything derail this. You're going to be an outstanding partner."
"Thank you," I say again, and my voice is steady and my expression is calm and inside I am standing in Ray's kitchen watching him crush tomatoes with his bare hands and knowing that I am about to destroy the only good thing I've ever had.
I walk back to my office. I close the door. I sit at my desk and I look at my hands — the same hands that held Ray's last night, that touched his jaw when I said "not tonight," that pressed against his stomach in his bed — and they're flat on the mahogany and they're holding nothing.
Through the glass, I can see Ray at his desk. He's on the phone, laughing about something. He looks up and sees me watching and his expression softens — the warmth, the "I see you" that I've never been able to resist.
I look away.
I already know what I'm going to do. I've known since Richard said the word. I just don't know how to survive it.