Chapter 2 #2
I press on, the words tearing out of me.
“What happens when your perfect fit shatters? When the glass slipper cuts your throat open while you’re sleeping?
” I’m breathing hard now, the memories flooding in.
“My father lost his mate when I was twelve. Cancer. A slow silent death that sliced him a hundred ways before she passed. He spent the next few years breathing in empty sheets and sliding into an early grave. No one talks about that side. The perfectly matched pair that gets fucking obliterated. It’s not a fairy tale then, Starlight. It’s a death sentence.”
She stares at me, her brown eyes stretched into long, wide ovals instead of their almond shapes. Good. Let her see the truth. Let her—
“So we’re not supposed to love at all?” she whispers. “Because it might end?”
“We should focus on what we can control.” My voice is granite. “The present. Not some hypothetical future where everything goes to shit.”
She moves closer, her bare feet silent on the hardwood. “The present is nice, Liam. But hoping for the future, believing in it… that’s living.”
“Then let’s live in it.” I grab her wrist, pull her flush against me.
Her scent spikes, and I know the heat is building again.
I can smell it, that sweet-slick perfume that makes my brain short-circuit.
“Right now, you need me. Your heat’s climbing.
Your body is asking for things I can give.
Let me give them. For a few days. While it lasts. ”
Her eyes search mine. “And then?”
“Then we’ll figure it out.” The lie slides out despite my heart’s protest. “But I can’t—” I stop.
Force the words out. “I can’t give you more than this.
No matter what my body demands. I control my future.
Not biology. Not some ancient instinct that turns alphas into walking corpses when their omega dies. ”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she rises on her toes, pressing her lips to the corner of my mouth. “Okay, Alpha. Present it is.”
The way she says it—Alpha, capital A, like a title and a promise and a prayer all at once… I can’t process it. I should push her away. Should tell her about Bethany, about the contract, about the empire I’ve built that doesn’t have room for a flower-selling omega who believes in fairy tales.
Instead, I kiss her.
It’s softer than before. Not the desperate clash of hormones, but something slower. Deeper. Her lips part under mine, and I taste the sugar-sweet residue of her heat, the underlying flavor that’s uniquely Star. My hands slip under the shirt, finding her skin, and she moans into my mouth.
The sound demolishes my control. I lift her, and her legs snake around my waist. We crash onto the bed this time, the mattress giving under our combined weight. I tear the shirt off her—my shirt—and she’s bare beneath me, all soft curves and desperate need.
“Liam,” she sighs, arching up. “Need you. It’s getting worse.”
I know. Her thighs quake, and slick heat coats my fingers when I test her readiness. The heat cycle is ramping up, each wave stronger than the last. Biological clockwork designed to break an alpha’s will.
My will is already in tatters.
I thrust into her, and it's as if I've stuck my hand into an electric sleeve. She’s tighter this time, hotter, her body clamping down like it’s trying to fuse us into one entity.
I rut into her at a brutal pace, driven by the primal need to fill her, breed her, claim every inch of her until there’s no question who she belongs to.
Her nails rake down my back, leaving fire in their wake. “Yes—god—just like that.”
I bite her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to leave another mark.
Enough to say mine without the words I can’t give her.
She shatters around me, crying out my name, half wail, half shout.
I follow her over the edge with an angry roar as my body demands I never give this up. Ever. The roar says it fucking refuses.
The knot locks us together again, and I roll us so she’s on top, straddling me. She collapses forward, her face buried in my neck, and I feel her smile against my skin.
“Present,” she whispers. “I like the present.”
I close my eyes and pretend I don’t hear the clock ticking down.
Three days later.
Star blankets my chest again, her breathing deep and even. I’ve memorized its pattern. The little hitches when she dreams, the way she snuffles and burrows closer when I shift. My body is exhausted and overworked, but my mind is wide-awake.
I’ve messaged my staff that I had an emergency and that I’ll be unavailable. I picture their confused faces.
My family has been blowing up my phone. Roan started a group text:
Roan: Just let us know if you’re still alive, man.
Me: I’m alive. Just under the weather. Don’t worry. Can still kick your ass.
Vivian: You’ve never been sick a day in your life.
Grayson: One hundred says he found his omega.
Vivian: I’ll take that bet. Liam would be in his grave before he’d ever mate.
Me: I’m just sick. I added a green vomit emoji
Grayson: Sick with love.
Me: You guys are assholes. I’m going back to bed.
Roan: Wait, what’s her name?
Me: Bye.
There are no messages from Bethany. She’s in Singapore handling a logistics issue, completely unaware that across the world, her fiancé knotted his true mate. The irony would be hilarious if it weren’t so fucking tragic.
Star stirs, her hand tracing patterns on my chest. “Tell me about your company,” she mumbles, half-asleep. “You said you had meetings.”
“It’s just real estate. Boring.”
“Billionaire real estate mogul boring?” She props her chin on my chest, eyes bright with all the sunshine that lives within her. “Tell me. I want to know what makes you tick when you’re not… ticking.”
I almost smile. “Acquisitions. Development. I buy shitty buildings and make them less shitty. Then I sell them for profit.”
“Sounds satisfying.”
“It’s controlled. Predictable. Numbers don’t lie. People do.”
She flinches at the edge in my voice. I’m doing it again—pushing her away with sharp words. It’s the only defense I have left.
“What about your company?” I ask, turning the spotlight. “Star Brite Flowers. How does a twenty-something omega start a business in this city without an alpha backing her?”
The question is personal. Too personal. But she answers. “I’m twenty four. And my grandma,” she says, her face softening. “She was an omega, too. When she passed, she left me enough seed money to get started. Literally seed money. Not a fortune, but enough for a lease and some equipment.”
“She sounds like a smart woman.”
“She was.” Star’s fingers trace a scar on my ribs from a bike accident. “She believed in independence, she was an omega right’s advocate. But she also believed in love. Said the right alpha wouldn’t steal your wings—he’d help you build a bigger sky.”
My throat tightens. “That’s a lot of pressure to put on a guy.”
She laughs. “You’re not just any guy. You’re the guy who just spent the last few days making sure I didn’t die from my heat. And you’re still here.”
Because I can’t fucking leave. But I don’t say it. Instead, I ask, “This online branch you want. Same-day delivery. That’s ambitious.”
Her eyes light up, and I’ve given her the perfect deflection.
She talks for twenty minutes about delivery apps, temperature-controlled packaging, and partnerships with local cafes.
Her passion is a living thing, bright and infectious.
She wants to build something, and I yearn to build with her.
She describes a cascading bouquet of midnight roses and jasmine, her hands sketching shapes in the air, and for a moment I almost smile despite myself.
“We could do a subscription service,” she says, getting animated. “Heat-week comfort boxes. For omegas who can’t get what they need.”
The words hang in the air. Can’t get what they need.
I clear my throat. “You’d need logistics. A distribution center. Beta drivers who won’t be affected by omega pheromones.”
“See?” She grins. “You’re already problem-solving. That’s what a good alpha does.”
“I’m not your alpha.” The denial is automatic. And the moment it leaves my mouth, turns her eyes away.
“Right.” She says, sitting up. The sheets fall to her lap. “Present. I forgot.”
Guilt claws at my gut. I sit up too, reaching for her, but she scoots back.
“Star—”
“You know what my mom used to say? After my dad would bring her those Wednesday flowers?” She’s not looking at her hands. Her voice has gone soft. Distant. “She’d say, ‘The best bonds aren’t made in the heat, baby. They’re made in the quiet moments after. When you choose each other anyway.’”
I’m gutted. The words slice between my ribs, finding my heart.
“I’m choosing,” she whispers. “Even if you won’t.”
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating. Her heat scent is spiking again, but it’s different now—layered with sadness, with rejection. My own biology riots at the change. My alpha instincts are howling at me to fix it, to soothe her, to promise her everything she wants.
But I can’t. I have a contract. A merger. A life that doesn't include fairy-tale endings.
“I should go,” I say, ripping the words from my throat.
She nods, still not looking at me. “Yeah. Probably.”
I stand, find my clothes scattered like debris across the floor. I pull on my pants and shirt. Each layer feels like armor snapping into place. I’m becoming the man I was before her again. The controlled mogul. The alphahole who doesn’t believe in glass slippers.
I’m at the bedroom door when she speaks.
“Liam, the real gift is the future. All the years you have in front of you. We could have them. Together.”
I walk out before answering. Before I say something, before hope flares in her eyes again. Because hope is the most dangerous thing of all.