Chapter Five #2
“Miss?” Luke’s voice comes suddenly from outside my slightly ajar door. Then, he pokes his head in.
My heart rate immediately increases, and my whole face turns crimson red out of embarrassment. I feel like a kid caught with her hand in a candy jar.
He had just walked in on a discussion about him.
“Luke! Don’t just come in. At least wait for me to respond!” I scold as I hurry to put the phone face down while simultaneously ending the call. I can't tell how much of that he heard.
“I’m sorry, Miss. The door was open, so I just…” he trails off.
Right. One of the maids must have left it ajar after cleaning my room while I was in the shower this morning. Shit.
I gather myself quickly and reply, “It’s fine, but next time, please—”
“Alright, miss,” he answers, giving a small nod of understanding. Luke takes his job very seriously, and even if he heard anything, it doesn't mean a thing. He knows that whatever we must have shared meant nothing. I've made sure to remind him of that at every turn.
But there was something in his voice. Sounds like he was upset or worried about something. It's evidently written all over his face.
“Luke? Is everything okay? What’s wrong with you?” I ask gently.
He opens his mouth to answer but shuts it almost immediately, like he's thought better of his action.
“I don't think it's my place to say,” he says politely, avoiding eye contact as he tries to look anywhere else but at me.
“Your father wants to speak with you. Don't keep him waiting,” he says with a note of finality while holding the door open for me to walk through.
I narrow my eyes at him but say nothing, and picking up my phone, I send a quick text to Danae, apologizing for unceremoniously ending the call on her before getting up and walking past him to go meet my dad.
“Hey, Dad. You called?”
He's seated in his favorite chair in the grand living room with a shot of whiskey in hand. On the table is a second glass, indicating that he was with someone. Whoever it was must have left, I thought.
“Yeah, please sit,” he says, gently placing the glass back down on the table as he clears his throat.
I'm a little apprehensive as to what he has to say. My dad doesn't just call a person up like that unless it's something important.
“There's something important I’d like to discuss with you,” he begins, and my curiosity is piqued instantly.
“You know how crazy it's been for this family the past couple of months—not just internally but externally, too. I don't need to spell it out to you because you've suffered firsthand in the hands of the public. The tabloids.”
Omg! Where is this going?
“With everything that has happened and is still happening, I’ve been thinking of possible solutions to get out of this and it came to me.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask him.
He gives a long pause before continuing, “There’s this old friend of mine. His name is Ryan. I wonder if you've heard of him before,” he says, searching my face for any answers.
“I hope you're not saying what I think you are, Dad?”
“Yes, I am,” he affirms. Relaxing back in his chair.
“What?! Dad, no!” I exclaim.
He wants to put me in an arranged marriage. Again. As if the first one hadn't led to a barrage of embarrassment.
I almost laugh when he says that this person is an old friend of his. For someone to be a friend of my dad’s, I'm guessing they should be almost 30 years older than me!
He goes on to highlight, for emphasis, our struggle as a family, how horrible the business side of things has become, and how this would help us.
But that's not even the shocker. The said “friend” has been married before, too. He explains that Ryan has been a widower for about twenty years now. Wow, couldn’t even find a second wife in two decades. Is he some sort of troll?
“What a catch this Ryan is,” my reply is sarcastic.
But he doesn't catch it because he replies with, “He really is a catch, and this will be the most rewarding union ever.”
He prattles on, explaining the many ways marrying Ryan will be beneficial to me and our family in general. He's saying all that, but I'm not really hearing him.
“Has my condition deteriorated so much that I'm being married off to someone who is much older and, to top it off, a widower?”
“Look. He's a very powerful Alpha. If not the most powerful,” he sounds very convincing, but I'm unimpressed. Somehow, I find the situation very pitiable, much worse than sloppy seconds.
“No, I have better prospects,” I say stubbornly, my mind fully made up.
Suddenly, hearty laughter bursts out from behind me, accompanied by the sound of the doors opening. “What better prospects do you mean?” a voice, silky with a deep baritone that is almost threatening.
I don’t need to turn around to know that this must be the man we were talking about.
He releases his pheromones, and it hits me like a tidal wave. There's this overpowering sensation that washes over me.
I’m on my knees in seconds, not having time to bring up my own pheromones to protect myself. I haven't felt anything like it before. He’s so powerful that I would have thought that this was Ares if not for how different his scent is. Like a forest, a huge, intimidating forest.
Dad was right. This man is powerful.
Because of how strong we are, it’s easy to forget that one of the factors that determine strength is age. Me, Ares, Cassie, and Henry, we’re just so powerful that, usually, we’re still more powerful than those who are older than us despite not yet having reached our peaks.
This man is at his peak and more powerful than all of us. We just hadn’t met anyone before now who was strong enough for their age to count against us.
But he’s here now.
I muster all the strength I can and fight back, but I can't seem to break away. My pheromones don't do much to protect me from this man.
Overwhelmed, my body submits completely, and I begin to pant, my heat getting induced. I am much better at control than most Omegas, so even when being pushed to this point, I don’t immediately become a mindless, lustful mess. I haven’t been that way in years.
Thankfully, he abruptly stops, his pheromones leaving the air so that I can breathe again. My wolf is a primal animal. She welcomes the strength that forced her to heel, and I hate it so much.
When I get back up, I'm incredibly upset. I can't look him or my dad in the face. I storm out of the office without looking at him, thoroughly embarrassed.
As I push the doors open, barreling out, I immediately bump into Luke. Right. He was waiting for me.
I grab him by the arm, leading him into my room to help me fix this heat and calm down.