Chapter 2
Presley
I read it twice.
"So?" Maeve asked as she leaned forward, her elbows on the table.
"So, some rich alpha pack in London wants to rent a womb." I dropped the clipping back onto the table. "What else is new? Alphas always want something they can buy."
"Look at the location, Pres. It’s in Kensington. That’s not just rich. That’s real money. That’s 'I own a yacht and a small island' money."
"And?"
"And you’re broke."
"I'm financially challenged."
"You’re heating your caravan with a hairdryer and…" Maeve’s voice dropped. “I saw you scraping mold off the wall.”
My cheeks heated. "It was just a spot. Penicillin is good for you."
"Presley." She reached out, covering my hand with hers. Her skin was rough, chapped from washing dishes. "This could be it. The way out. The payment could be enough to get a proper flat."
I looked at the ad again. The words sparkled on the page. Kensington. A place of white stucco houses, wrought iron fences, and people who didn't know what a pre-payment electric key was.
"They won't want me." The shield I’d built meticulously over the twenty-three years I’d been on this earth locked into place.
"Look at the requirements. 'Discreet.' I have no filter.
'Healthy.' I eat chips three times a week. They want some posh London omega who smells like Chanel Number Five and went to a finishing school. They want pedigree. I’m a mongrel from a caravan park in North Yorkshire. "
"You're pretty," Maeve argued. "You've got the hips for it. And you're clean."
"Thanks. I’ll put that on my CV. 'clean and has hips.'"
"I'm serious! Just call them."
"Why don't you call them?" I shot back. "You're an omega. You need money just as much as I do."
Maeve flinched. It was small, a tightening of her jaw, a flicker in her green eyes. She pulled her hand back. "I can't leave the park, Pres. You know that."
"You can. We could go together. We should both get out of this dump."
"No. I'm safe here," she said, and the finality in her voice shut me up. She looked out the window again, at the gray trees. "Nobody looks for people here. It's off the map."
"Maeve..."
"Besides," she forced a smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I… I doubt I'd be enough for a high value pack in London."
The air between us grew heavy. We never talked about her life.
We never talked about the bruise she’d had on her arm when she first started working here, or why she flinched at loud noises.
She was hiding from something, or someone, but assumptions weren't always good.
For instance, people assumed when my parents died, I was going to be rich.
I took a sip of tea to wash down the lump in my throat. "Fine. I'll think about it. But they won't pick me."
"They might." Maeve bent down and rummaged in her bag on the floor. "Which is why you need to be prepared."
She slapped a plastic Tesco bag onto the table. There was something long and hard inside.
I peered into the bag.
"Maeve, why have you got me a turkey baster?" I whispered, looking around to see if the old man from caravan fifty five was at the counter watching. He normally came in at this time of the day.
“Don’t let Dave know about it. I put it on the food delivery order. It’s technical support," she whispered loudly. "Shows initiative and professionalism, Presley! If you get the interview, you whip that out, show them you know how the mechanics work. Save them the awkward conversation."
I choked on a laugh, nearly snorting tea out of my nose. "You think I should sit down with a rich alpha pack, and slap a ninety-nine pence turkey baster on their desk?"
"It’s hygienic!"
"You’re mental."
"I'm practical." She pushed the bag toward me. "Get in there first. They’re probably gay and don’t want a baby the natural way.”
“Why not?”
“Because as pretty as you might be down there.” Her finger wiggled as it pointed between my legs. “They won’t be interested.”
I shook my head, but I took the bag. "If I get arrested for having a concealed weapon, I’m blaming you."
"Deal."
“Do you think they’re gay?” I asked.
“Probably. They only want a baby.”
“Or they have a barren omega.”
“And if so, he or she will certainly not want their alphas’ dicks inside you.”
The bell above the door rang out.
“That’s the end of our break,” I grumbled.
The afternoon dragged on. The lunch rush was a parade of jacket potatoes and lukewarm soups. I wiped tables, smiled until my face hurt, and tried to ignore the newspaper clipping burning a hole in my apron pocket as I thought about anything else.
The leak in the caravan roof dripped right onto the foot of my bed when it rained hard.
The wind rattled the windows so hard the glass would shatter if it weren't held together by cling film, duct tape, and a prayer. For some weird reason, I even thought about the bank manager's face when he'd told me my parents' house was being repossessed, when I thought they’d paid it off.
But could I take an alpha’s money? Would I have to carry their child for nine months before I got paid? What if they changed their minds? What if their omega hated me!
Theirs was a different world. A world where heat was a given, not a luxury. Where food wasn't calculated by the pence.
At three o'clock, I went on my break.
I didn't stay in the warm cafe. I went out the back, into the alleyway where the bins were kept. I inhaled, and regretted it immediately when the smell of rotting cabbage caught in my nose as the wind whipped around the corner.
I shivered as it bit at my exposed neck, but I needed the cold. I needed a reality check.
The clipping was still in my pocket. My fingers wrapped around my phone. “What’s the worst they can say?”
My thumb hovered over the number.
Don't be stupid, Presley. They'll laugh at you.
But the cold was seeping into my bones, and I was so tired of being cold.
I dialed the number. The phone rang.
Once. Twice.
"Hastings," a voice answered.
It wasn't a receptionist. It was a man. And his voice was so deep, a baritone, rich sound that had the kind of authority that made your knees want to shake and your thighs to want to do something traitorous.
Stop it!
I froze. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Hello?" the voice said. "Is anyone there?"
He sounded... impatient. Dominant. Like a typical alpha.
Panic clawed up my throat. I looked at the overflowing bin next to me, at the graffiti on the brick wall that said SHAZZA LOVES NIGEL, and then at my chipped fingernails.
What was I doing?
I was a waitress who lived in a tin can. It didn't matter that I was ready and already had a turkey baster in a carrier bag. I wasn't what a man like Hastings wanted in his fancy place in Kensington.
"Hello!" His irritation growled through the line.
I hung up.
My heart did a pitter-patter against my ribcage like a butterfly trapped in closed palms.
"Coward," I whispered as I stared at the phone screen. Then I shoved the phone back into my pocket and leaned my head against the cold brick wall. They would never choose someone like me. Not in a million years.
But as I stood there, inhaling the scent of bin juice and cold air, I wondered what did the man attached to that voice look like? He sounded posh, but he also spoke exactly how I wanted an alpha to talk to me.
Like he was in charge.
And for a terrifying second, I wished I hadn't hung up.
"Presley!" Maeve shouted from the back door. I jumped as she yelled, "Table six spilled a milkshake! It's everywhere!"
"Coming!" I smoothed down my dirty apron and walked back to my reality.