The Omega Project (Billionaires in Heat #5)

Emily

“Aunty Em, you’re lying on my Spiderman!”

I roll over with a groan, my nephew’s little fingers burrowing under my ribs for his missing toy. Since I’m stupidly ticklish, it’s a pretty effective way of getting me to move, even though the light leaking through the living room blinds tells me it’s way too early to get up on a Sunday.

“Five more minutes, Jay?”

“But he’s suffocating! He’s not like Aquaman. He needs air to breathe, you know?”

My groan is more of a laugh this time, and I force myself upright, my spine popping at the stretch. What I’m saving in rent by sleeping on my sister’s couch will probably cripple me in chiropractor bills down the road, but life has made me a ‘living in the moment’ kind of person. And right now, that means bedding down with my nephew’s sticky fingerprints, OJ stains, and lost action heroes.

“Here he is, buddy,” I tell Jacob, handing over the plastic toy. Unlike me, Spiderman looks no worse for wear from my restless night. “Remember to play quietly until Gran wakes up.”

“She’s already up,” Jacob chirps, then casts a sideways look at the kitchen door. You can glean a lot from the eyes of an inquisitive six-year-old, so I brace myself as he says, “She’s having breakfast with Mr. Wagner, and she’s still in her nightie .”

My nephew sounds a little scandalised by the fact, and I’d cringe if my heart wasn’t suddenly beating in my throat.

What the hell is Rick doing here?

The bigger question would be why my mum let my ex into the house, but unfortunately, she refuses to accept that I kicked Rick out of my life six months ago. As far as she’s concerned, he’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and our only chance at moving back up in the world. I’m not sure if it was all the years she spent mated to a master manipulator, but Lori Nash is a firm believer that behind every happy woman is a dominant man.

Gritting my teeth, I haul myself off the couch, grabbing a hoodie to throw over my PJs. It’s way too big on my five-foot-four frame, but it smells like my best friend Derek, which instantly settles my nerves. The fact that my ex will know I’m wearing another man’s clothes is just an added bonus.

The antique kitchen table is also oversized, but it’s a relic from our childhood home, and Mum insists on keeping up appearances, as she calls it. That includes laying a crisp linen tablecloth beneath her porcelain dinner set and keeping a vase of plastic roses on the counter. She’s also dressed to the nines in a silky robe and high-heeled slippers, her hair perfectly curled and coral-pink lipstick in place. My mum is a beautiful woman, but there’s been a sour note to her omega scent ever since my dad walked out, and she tries to cover it with too much perfume. Just another reminder of the damage a powerful alpha can do, not that I need one with the scar tingling on my wrist.

As I enter the kitchen, my mum is in the process of pouring Rick another cup of coffee, a basket of freshly baked croissants between them. When she sees me standing in the doorway, she flings me an ecstatic smile, a hectic blush burning in her cheeks. “Look who’s come to see us, ! And he’s brought some pastries from that French bakery you love so much. How considerate is that?”

She’s actually referring to the bakery she loves; I think it’s overpriced, and the snooty owner looks down his alpha nose at me every time I venture inside.

Although, French baked goods are the last thing on my mind as my ex leans back in his chair, his eyes lingering on my frayed sleep shorts. When we were together, he always insisted I wear silk to bed, so he gives me a very different kind of smile than the one on my mother’s face. “Bed too lumpy, darling?”

The smug edge to his voice makes me grit my teeth harder, but I focus on the real menace in the room. “Mum, can you give us a moment? I need to talk to Rick in private before I head off to uni.”

“But it’s a Sunday, !” she tuts, her eyes narrowing in reproach. “And it’s still so early. You can spare a moment to eat, can’t you?”

“I’ve got a lot of work to do on my thesis,” I remind her, since my mum has a habit of ignoring the parts of my life she doesn’t agree with. “Rick and I can chat while I show him out.”

“Don’t be rude, ,” she scolds me, her mouth drawn into an uncompromising line as she gestures towards the seat next to my ex. “Sit down and spend a little time catching up. Rick has some very important news he wants to share with you, and you owe him at least that much.”

“Mum!” I hate using such a harsh tone, but I can’t indulge her a moment longer. For her sanity – and mine – I need to wrap this up as quickly as I can. “Rick and I broke up, so he’s not staying for breakfast. Please go back to your room while I show him out.”

“Where are your manners, ?” Tears well in my mother’s big blue eyes as she grips the edges of her robe. “I didn’t raise you to be like this!”

“I’m sorry, mum, and you can scold me all you want later, but right now I need you to leave.”

She gives a despairing cry as I steer her out of the kitchen, her high heels clacking frantically on the old linoleum. She feels small and fragile beneath my hands, but she hasn’t given up the fight, and when she turns at the door, her thin fingers dig painfully into my arm. Her eyes are now as hard as blue gems, every strain line visible under her makeup. “You need to think very clearly about what you say to him, , or you’ll give him the wrong impression and ruin everything.”

“Don’t worry, Mum.” I pat her hand while simultaneously removing her claws from my arm. “Rick knows exactly what I think of him.”

I shut the door firmly on my mother’s aggrieved face, because there’s no way she will retreat to her bedroom. In her world, listening at keyholes is perfectly acceptable behaviour for the mother of an obstinate child. Except we’re not in some Jane Austen romance, and the alpha lounging at our kitchen table isn’t here as a starry-eyed suitor.

I round on him, taking in his messy brown curls and smirking mouth, before my gaze moves reluctantly down his body. Rick runs marathons when he’s not managing his trendy sports bar in the city, and he’s wearing his usual weekend attire of black tights and a white compression tank. Every dip and muscle of his lean body is on display, but all I feel is revulsion as he flexes under my inspection. “Get out of my house, Rick!”

“Your sister’s house.” He stretches his long legs out, looking so comfortable it makes acid burn in my belly. “Or should I say, my house. The news I came over to share is that your landlord signed the whole apartment complex over to me last night. That means you and your family belong to me now.”

Before I can stop myself, I’m tucking my scarred wrist behind my back. “You’re lying.”

He leans forward, a predatory light filling his eyes. “You know I only tell the truth, kitten, even when it hurts.”

We only dated for eight months, but I have way too many memories of being subjected to Rick’s version of tough love. Like the time he said I was the biggest disappointment in my parents’ lives; and how he capped off our break-up scene by telling me he was the only alpha who would waste his time with such a mediocre beta pussy.

Words that now echo in my head, making my eyes narrow to slits. “Get the fuck out , Rick, before I tell all your friends exactly what an abusive arsehole you are.”

Reputation is everything to Rick, but in the dying weeks of our relationship, he didn’t try as hard to hide the bully living under his smooth exterior. In fact, it alarmed me how quickly he could switch from loving to hostile, and just reinforced my need to get away from him. Of course, I hung in there just a few days too long, earning me a bite mark I later tried to remove with a Brillo pad and a bottle of whiskey. The scar is a mess, but it’s better than ending up bonded to a monster.

His sinister side is glaring at me now, his lip curled in a sneer. “You’ll be eating those words when I turn up next week with a rent increase.”

He gets slowly to his feet, his muscles coiled under his skin-tight clothes. The violence is almost vibrating off him and I grip the back of the chair, forcing myself to stand my ground. He stops only a few inches away, pressing his thumb to my bottom lip. “Enjoy this moment, kitten, because the next time you see me, you’ll be on your knees, begging to stay in this shithole.”

His thumbnail digs in painfully and I jerk my head back. “Get out!” I repeat, shoving him away and darting behind the kitchen counter. “I mean it. Leave, before you get a fucking frying pan to the face!”

“You heard her, Rick.” My sister’s voice sounds from the doorway, the alpha command like a rubber band snapping on my skin. Claudia is dressed in her green paramedic uniform, her knuckles white around her heavy work torch as she stares down my ex. “I’ve called the cops, but I’m more than willing to kick your skinny arse down the stairs if you insist on hanging around.”

Rick has always been a little intimidated by my alpha sister, and when she takes a menacing step towards him, he almost trips over his feet to escape. But he pauses long enough to point a warning finger in my direction. “Your knees. Next week. Or the whole fucking lot of you will be out on the street.”

“Jesus, Em,” Claudia sighs as the door slams behind him, and I sink into the chair. She quickly fits the deadbolt and checks the glass panel to make sure he’s gone. “How the hell did he get in here?”

“Mum,” I say with a weary sigh, rubbing my throbbing temples. “She was feeding him breakfast in her silk robe like a fifties housewife.”

“Oh, God ,” Claudia groans, flopping into the chair at my side and snatching up a croissant. “That explains why she scuttled into her room like her arse was on fire.”

I snort and reach for the coffeepot, pouring myself a generous cup. We skimp on a lot of things in this house, including coffee, but it seems mum had some of the good stuff squirreled away for a special occasion. I pull a face as I contemplate her screwed-up priorities. “I hate to say it, but we really need to get her head looked at, Dee.”

We exchange a sad smile, since our mum’s mental state has plagued us for years. She’s a regular at the local walk-in clinic, but unfortunately, she’s there more for the cute doctors than the psychiatric assessments.

I let Claudia enjoy the flaky pastry before I break the bad news. “It gets worse, Dee. Rick only came by to gloat about buying the apartment block, making him our new landlord. He plans to increase the rent if I don’t get on my knees and…”

My sister’s hand shoots out and grabs my wrist. Unlike my mother’s touch, all I feel is safety and comfort in Claudia’s tight grip. “You don’t have to do anything, okay? If he really bought the place, then we move. This isn’t exactly my dream house, Em.”

As she looks around the faded kitchen, I can see the weariness etched into her face. Claudia is four years older than me, but she takes after our mum with her blonde beauty, while I look more like our dad with my red hair and hazel eyes. Once upon a time, my sister burned so brightly I felt like a pale shadow in her presence, but that was before one of her mates was killed in a training exercise and the other went AWOL. Now she’s working fulltime as a paramedic and raising Jacob as best she can. She’s an amazing mum, but grief hangs over her like a shroud, and I can still hear her through her bedroom wall when she cries herself to sleep most nights.

“The thing is, Dee… Derek has asked me to move in with him.”

A glimmer of pain flickers through her eyes, but she quickly blinks it away. “About damn time, Em!” She reaches over to give me a quick hug, covering us both in pastry flakes. “You guys are perfect together.”

“I’d take over his spare room and pay my way,” I interject, but she makes a rude sound as she sucks pastry crumbs off her thumb. “Okay, maybe roommates who occasionally sleep in the same bed, but you know that part is still new.”

“Well, I think you’d be crazy not to lock him down,” Dee says with all the confidence of an alpha. “He’s hot, smart, and head over heels for you.” She looks around the kitchen, frowning at the plastic roses on the counter. “And maybe it’s the kick in the pants I need to look for a new place.”

“Well, I’ll still need to make the budget work. Derek’s neighborhood is pretty fancy.”

Claudia waggles her brows at me. “I’m sure he can think of a few ways you can cover the rent if you fall short.”

“Ew!” I smack her arm. “I’ll have you know I’m a fiercely independent woman.”

“Except when you’re crashing on my couch.”

I toss a piece of croissant at her smirking face. “Seriously, I want to go into this as equals. And if it turns into more… Well, I just don’t want to wind up living with a mistake again.”

“Derek is nothing like Ratface Rick,” she scoffs, but then pats my arm. “It’s good to be cautious, but don’t let the past hold you back from future happiness.” She grabs her torch and another croissant as she stands, tossing me a cocky grin. “Aren’t you lucky to have such a wise older sister?”

I squint at her. “Didn’t someone once say that wisdom is knowing you know nothing?”

“That sounds like the kind of useful thing you’d learn at uni.”

Claudia enlisted in the army straight out of high school and loves to introduce me to people as the oldest student on the planet.

We both snigger at our banter, but she pauses at the door to give me a serious look. “You deserve good things, Em, but the world can change in an instant. Make sure you reach out and grab what you want before it’s too late.”