Chapter 8 Presley
Presley
The cold hit me immediately. The jumpers helped but couldn't fully block the wind cutting across the open field. I walked fast, then faster, icy grass crunching under my boots. By the time I got to my caravan, all three alphas had turned to face me.
They looked absurd here. Like magazine cutouts pasted onto a gray, muddy background.
Fritz in his smart coat and with those cheekbones that were sharp enough to cut glass.
Etienne with those hazel eyes that tracked my approach with unsettling intensity.
Hastings in his perfect suit, not a hair out of place despite the helicopter wind.
I glanced at my caravan door, hanging at a drunken angle, and the lock ripped clean through the aluminium.
"Hello." I stopped a few feet away, crossing my arms. "Mister... Fritz. Etienne. Hastings." I nodded toward the damage. "Someone owes me a new door."
Hastings barely glanced at it. "We'll get you a new caravan at the end of the nine months."
My heart did a flip. "I got the job?"
"How did you get travel back here?" Etienne asked.
"Train."
Hastings narrowed his eyes. "I thought you had no money."
"I didn't pay."
"You—" Hastings looked suitable shocked.
"You have the job," Fritz interrupted, his eyes traveling over me, assessing the three jumpers and the wind-chapped cheeks and the fact that despite how much I was wearing, I was visibly shivering. His jaw tightened. "But you're coming to London. Now."
"Now?" I blinked at him. "I can't come now. I have a shift at the café."
"I'm offering you a fortune, Presley." Hastings' voice was flat, that controlled CEO tone I'd heard in his office. "What would you prefer? Serving bacon sandwiches or financial security for the rest of your life?"
Putting it like that, it sounded simple. It wasn't simple. Nothing was ever simple.
"Financial security. I just thought..." I trailed off, grasping for an explanation that made sense. "I'd get a kitten. Maybe paint my bean tins."
"A kitten," Hastings repeated.
"I've been thinking about it. Mr. Cheddar's made it clear he doesn't like commitment, so I thought I'd get my own. An orange one, probably. Name him something ridiculously cute like Gerald. I could get two…" I was rambling, but the weight of three alpha stares made my tongue go stupid.
Fritz' glanced behind me, his expression shifting. Still controlled, but darker underneath and more alert.
I glanced over my shoulder.
The alphas Maeve mentioned were watching. One of them looked at me a beat too long.
"Inside," Fritz barked.
My body did a little involuntary shiver. "The café—"
"Inside. Now."
His tone brooked no argument. I stepped into my caravan past the door hanging open like a broken wing, Fritz and Hastings followed. Each dipped their heads as they entered the small space.
Etienne stayed outside. I heard him make a low sound in his chest, something that wasn't quite a growl but wasn't far off.
"They can smell you," Fritz said quietly. He stood by the tiny window, angling his body so he could watch both me and the alphas outside. "You. A virgin–an unmated omega and your heat symptoms are showing."
I crinkled my nose and sniffed. “I smell fine and so you know I'm only a virgin in the sense of not being with a man," I muttered, heat crawling up my neck. "I've got two toys and plenty of batteries, Fritz. I'm a big girl."
He grinned for a moment, the expression vanishing as his gaze fixed on the window, tracking the alphas outside.
"They’re waiting."
"For what?"
"For you. For your heat. For the chance to get close to an unmated omega." His accent thickened slightly on the last words. "This park has no security. No gates. Nothing to stop them from—" There was a tic on his jaw as his eyes flicked to the window.
“I’ve lived here for a few years and never had a problem.”
“You have one now,” Hastings replied. “If you want this deal, you need to leave now. Get anything that is important to you.”
I knew what he meant as my gaze tracked over my nest.
"But I have a shift," I said. "Maeve isn't feeling well. I need to help her.”
"I’m fine.”
I turned to see Maeve stood in what used to be my doorway, one hand braced against the splintered frame. She looked worse than she had twenty minutes ago. Paler and sweating despite the cold.
"Maeve—"
"I told you to take the opportunity." She stepped inside, moving around Fritz like he was furniture as Hastings stepped outside. Her gaze swept over him with the same sharp assessment she gave everyone, like she was remembering everything for later. "This is them, then? The baby daddies?"
"I—" My gaze darted between them. "Yes?"
She glanced out of the window and studied Hastings, then Etienne who was radiating barely contained aggression at the watching alphas. Her mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
She nodded slowly. "Not bad."
"I thought you were sick."
"I’m sick, not blind." She picked up my rucksack from where it sat in the corner and shoved it toward me. "Pack your bag. Get what you need for your nest."
“They’ll burn it all.”
“They wouldn’t dare.”
"What about you?"
"I'm not stopping you from having this opportunity." She pulled clothes from my tiny wardrobe, folding them with efficient movements. "I can cope with a bit of sickness. Dave can cope without you for a few months."
"Nine—"
She grabbed my shoulders with trembling hands, turning me to face her. Her pupils were slightly dilated. She was genuinely unwell, but she was still here. Still trying to take care of me.
"You deserve this," she said quietly. "Security. Safety. A future that isn't..." She gestured at the caravan. "This."
The door frame creaked as Hastings reappeared, taking up the remaining space with his shoulders and his presence and that rain scent that made something low in my belly tighten.
"We need to leave," he said. "Now. The weather is turning."
Maeve released my shoulders and turned to face him. The height difference was almost comical. She barely came up to his chest, but she held his stare without flinching.
"She'd better call me every day," she said. "Every single day. If I don't hear from her—"
"She'll call." Hastings' voice was flat. "Are you coming, Presley?"
The question hung in the cramped air. Behind him, through the broken doorway, the helicopter waited. It was my escape. My freedom. This was my only chance at finding something other than freezing to death in a caravan while alphas circled closer and closer.
And then Etienne appeared at Hastings' shoulder, and his eyes found mine, and—
Oh.
He looked at me with a gaze that burned with something that went beyond professional interest, beyond biological impulse. Something hungry and desperate and if I dared to believe it. With want.
My skin flushed hot despite the cold.
"You’ve hit the jackpot," Maeve muttered in my ear, "because they're hardly here for your sophistication."
Hastings turned that granite stare of his on her. "We need a surrogate. The physical act is merely... necessary for conception."
"Keep telling yourself that." Maeve's voice was bone-dry as she glared at him. "She brought a perfectly good turkey baster to the interview. Stop kidding yourself that you don't want her."
A muscle flexed in Hastings' jaw. He held her gaze for a long, loaded moment. It was an alpha against whatever Maeve was, which I'd never quite figured out because I was sure she was an omega but somedays, I doubted everything.
"Are you coming?"
I looked at Etienne, still watching me with those burning eyes.
At Fritz by the window, ready to protect me from alphas I hadn't even realized were a threat.
At Hastings, offering me everything I'd ever wanted wrapped in cold professionalism and a helicopter I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams.
Then at Maeve, who was sick and scared of something she'd never named, who'd made me a sandwich and walked me to work and was now shoving my only nice jumper into my rucksack. I couldn’t leave her. She needed me.
“Don’t you dare stay here for me.” Maeve’s voice wavered slightly, but was still wrapped in steel.
"Every day," I said, nodding. She wanted me to find something out of these metal walls. She gave me the clipping. "I'll call every day."
"You'd better." She zipped the bag, went to hand it to me, then dropped it between us and pulled me close for a hug. "Now go get knocked up by billionaires and don't forget to negotiate for helicopter visits back here."
I laughed and pulled her into a tighter hug. "Right. I need visitation rights. Be careful," I whispered.
"Be smart," she whispered back.
Then I let go, shouldered my rucksack, and stepped out of my caravan into whatever came next.
Hastings' hand landed on my lower back. It was barely a touch, just guidance as he steered me toward the helicopter. The warmth of his palm seared through my three jumpers like they were tissue paper.
"Can I say goodbye to Mr. Cheddar?" I asked.
"Who is Mr. Cheddar?"
"A cat. He's not mine, but he visits. He brings me dead mice." I craned my neck, looking for ginger fur among the caravans. "He'll wonder where I've gone."
Hastings stared at me for a long moment. Something flickered behind those gray eyes—confusion, maybe tenderness.
"You can write him a letter," he said finally.
"Cats can't read."
"Then I'll arrange for someone to read it to him."
I couldn't tell if he was joking. His expression gave nothing away. So, I assumed he was being straight.
I pushed past him, walking around the caravan. “Here kitty, kitty.” But he didn’t want to be found.
“We need to leave if you want the job,” Hastings said, turning and striding to the helicopter.
I followed. Sighing when I reached it.
I glanced back at my caravan, but Maeve had already disappeared. Just like the damn cat.
The helicopter's side door was open, heated air spilling out like an invitation. Etienne climbed in first, then turned to offer me his hand. His palm was warm and callused and sent electricity crackling up my arm when I took it.
"Attention à la marche," he said softly.
“What?”
“Watch your step.”
I smiled as I climbed in.
The interior was even more absurd than I remembered. Cream leather seats and little screens embedded in the headrests.
I sank into the heated seat and felt warmth seep into my bones for the first time in days.
Fritz and Hastings climbed in after me. The door sealed shut, cutting off the wind, and suddenly the only sounds were the low hum of the engines and my own ragged breathing.
"Buckle up," Hastings said, settling into the seat across from me.
I fumbled with the seatbelt until Fritz leaned over and did it for me. His fingers brushed against my hip. I tried not to shiver.
Hastings was typing something on his phone, not looking at me. "There's water in the armrest. Food if you're hungry."
"Maeve made me a sandwich."
His typing paused. "What?"
"For lunch. She made me a sandwich." My eyes teared as the grief suddenly hit me. I was leaving Maeve behind, leaving my pansies, leaving Mr. Cheddar who wasn't even mine but visited anyway. "I left it in the café fridge."
A beat of silence.
Then Etienne reached across the space between us and pressed something into my hands. It was only a protein bar. “We’ll make sure you have good, nutritious meals from now on. You’re too thin.”
"I'm not thin. I'm—" Curvy, I wanted to say. Soft in all the places omegas were supposed to be soft. But the words stuck in my throat because he was looking at me in that way again.
When the helicopter lifted off, I turned away from him, and glanced through the window. My caravan grew smaller. Then I saw Maeve appear at hers, one hand raised.
My heart hurt as I pressed my palm against the glass.
But I was doing this for her as well as me.
We could live in the cottage together in nine months.
I could save her from whatever demons she was running from.
But first I had a job to do. I was heading to London to make a baby with three alphas I barely knew.