Cassidy
The lift doors open on my floor.
Immediately, my stomach drops. People are here.
Obviously, Cassie, it is a workday.
But I’d convinced myself everyone would still be hidden behind office doors, too busy to notice one omega quietly slipping through reception.
Instead, the floor is alive with movement, the bullpen practically overflowing with staff members bustling around.
My heart seizes, and I freeze in place, trying to work out if something is wrong.
There’s no distress. No panic. No sense that anything is wrong.
I don’t think we’ve had another leak. Everyone is excited. The energy is nice, the scents infectious and bright.
A hundred familiar scents blend together into something that should feel comforting. Instead, I’ve never felt more outside of it all.
Whilst I’ve been at home, sleeping well past my usual start time, every person here has been at work, doing what they should.
And I… well, I suppose I did what Silas asked of me.
I did good. Right?
I feel like someone peeled my skin off yesterday and expected me to recover overnight, and yet, somehow, I’m more emotionally wrung out than ever.
Don’t cry, Cass, not here, not now.
I smooth down my skirt, adjust my bag strap, and keep walking. I’m not needed here.
I can’t help peeking at Harlan’s office, and I’m surprised to see the lights off.
He doesn’t have any early meetings today. That’s weird.
My chest tightens, but I rush past his office and down the corridor towards my own.
I reach my office door and fumble with my keys badly enough that I drop them before managing to get myself in.
The second the door closes behind me, I sag against the cold wood.
Fuck, how is this place more relaxing than home was last night?
My scent here is stronger, more at ease, more… I don’t even know.
I set my bag down carefully on the spare chair, turn my monitor on, and kick my shoes off like it’s any other day.
If I treat everything like it’s normal, then it will be.
It has to be.
A sharp knock sounds against my office door, and I startle, glancing up at the clock.
It’s close to ten, and I’m surprised anyone would come and visit me, never mind on a day when Harlan’s not here.
My pulse jumps when they knock again, and my scent pushes out in panic, strawberry cream suddenly sharper in the enclosed space.
For one ridiculous second, my stupid, traitorous heart already knows who it’s hoping to see.
But that’s the problem. Silas said he’d keep things… the same. And him visiting me at random is not the same.
But I have no idea who else it could be. Isaac is usually the only person to visit me down here.
I don’t think I’m ready to see him yet, though.
Part of me is angry.
Part of me is hurt.
Part of me still doesn’t know what to do with any of this.
And there’s a tiny, shameful part of me that still wants him to choose me.
The knock comes again, and I quickly brush down my dress, trying to look composed before calling out.
“Come in.”
My voice is too loud, too high-pitched, and nothing like how it should be.
And yet, the moment the door opens and I see a familiar head of hair, I can barely remember my own name, never mind what my voice sounded like.
Isaac closes the door quietly behind him. He doesn’t push closer to me, staying right by the door.
Not trapping me but still giving us the privacy we need.
His dark hair is perfectly styled, as usual. Espresso brown and neat, despite the fact that he has clearly been running his hands through it at some point. The shorter sides are immaculate, the slightly longer top is not, which is extremely unlike him.
His shirt is pressed. His tie is straight. He’s flawless.
Nearly everything about him is controlled.
Except for the tension sitting behind his caramel brown eyes.
His now familiar scent of butterscotch and caramel reaches me a second later, stronger than last time now that the door is closed.
Warm, nervous… uncertain.
My stomach twists. For weeks, Isaac has been a blank slate.
I’ve never been able to use his scent to figure out what he’s feeling.
Never been able to soak in it, to inhale it like it’s my own personal oxygen.
For weeks, he hasn’t given me this. Now I have it, and I don’t know what to do with it.
“Hi, shortcake,” he says carefully.
His deep voice is missing his usual teasing, and so is his easy smile.
I don’t like it. My throat tightens, acid burning at the back of it.
“Hi,” I whisper.
His gaze flicks over me with his usual observant eye, immediately finding every crack I’m trying to hide, and I fight the urge to cower back from him.
“You look tired.”
A laugh almost escapes me. Instead, I raise a brow, folding my arms across my chest.
“You don’t.”
His mouth twitches.
There it is—a tiny glimpse of the Isaac I’ve come to know.
“I’ve had practice.”
Something painful squeezes inside my chest.
I know him.
And yet, no matter what I’ve learnt, what I thought was the truth, he still deceived me.
I didn’t know he was my scent match.
His expression shifts, and he looks at the chairs opposite.
“May I?”
I nod, swallowing roughly. He’s never had to ask before.
We sit there, both avoiding looking at each other, despite doing exactly that.
The tension thickens in the air, making it hard to focus, never mind breathe.
Finally, Isaac exhales.
“I can leave.”
My pulse stutters.
“I mean it, Cassie. If you’re not ready to talk, I’ll go,” he says quietly. “Whatever you need.”
I stare at him, my face blank, as I try to figure out what I want.
This time yesterday, I’d have been certain he’d want to leave, that he wouldn’t want to be here, or even that he was here to… I don’t know, end whatever could have been before it even started.
And yet, now, I’m a little more open to hearing him out. He wouldn’t have come if he didn’t want to talk.
He wouldn’t have made the effort.
Has Silas really done this much to me? Has his certainty really made me feel this much steadier?
I don’t know.
Last night, everything felt broken. Today, I’m raw.
Isaac stays where he is, waiting for my decision.
He’s giving me the choice he should have given me from the beginning.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I swallow hard. “What if I don’t know what I want?”
His shoulders loosen slightly, and he nods carefully. “Then, that’s okay, too. We can just sit, and if you decide, we can do that.”
My chest aches, and I look at my monitor to avoid looking at him, even though his scent still lingers in every breath. And yet, that also panics me because there’s still nothing from Harlan.
“We can talk,” I say softly. “I want to understand why, Isaac. I need to understand.”
Isaac studies the edge of my desk before he lets out a slow breath.
“I’ve rewritten this conversation about forty-seven times in my head.”
Despite everything, a tiny laugh escapes me, and his mouth twitches.
“Fifty-two if we’re counting the arguments Ev and I have had.”
The laugh disappears as quickly as it came, and I look away from him.
The silence settles again.
“I know you want answers,” he says carefully.
I nod, peeking at him under my lashes. “I do.”
He rubs his thumb along the seam of his trousers, a tiny, repetitive motion that looks nothing like his usual ease.
“I knew from the first day,” he says quietly.
My stomach twists, even though I already know that.
It still hurts.
Apparently, hurt doesn’t care how many times you hear something. It still knows how to cut you open.
“The day Evander and I met?” I clarify.
Isaac nods once. Despite myself, my lips part.
“I didn’t understand my obsession at first,” Isaac continues. “Not until I met you myself.”
A tiny, helpless sound escapes me, and I cover my mouth, not wanting another noise to escape.
At least Isaac’s not biologically driven to try and soothe it.
Isaac’s eyes soften, but he doesn’t smile properly. “From the moment I smelled you, I knew. I couldn’t deny it any longer, couldn’t deny you any longer.”
My fingers tighten around the edge of the chair.
His scent shifts. The butterscotch and caramel are warmer now, threaded with something that makes the glands beneath my jaw ache.
He swallows. “Over the last few weeks, you’ve let me see the real you.
The one who is anxious and overly polite.
The one who would cut off her arm and offer it to the nearest amputee,” he says, shaking his head.
“I see how much you’re willing to break yourself rather than disappoint someone.
And I knew that there was no way I could help you.
Not right now. Not by adding our connection to everything already on your plate. ”
My throat burns, my eyes stinging, and I refuse to let myself cry.
“I wanted to tell you,” he says.
My chest tightens because I can’t believe him.
My scent must show that. It’s impossible to keep the sour edge of disbelief out of it.
“I did, Cassie. I know that doesn’t mean much now, but I need you to know it. I wanted to tell you so many times.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
The question comes out sharper than I expect.
Isaac doesn’t flinch.
He looks down at his hands. “Because Evander saw you first.”
I blink. Of all the answers I expected, that isn’t one of them.
“What?”
His laugh is quiet and completely without humour. “I know. It sounds ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t,” I whisper, even though I don’t understand it yet.
His eyes flick to mine, and something in his expression cracks.
“Evander is my family,” he says. “Not technically. Obviously. His dads would have a very strong opinion about that, and I’m fairly sure it would involve them giving me a restraining order.”
His voice softens. “But he is. He’s the first person who ever looked at me and didn’t see someone inconvenient.”
My breath catches in surprise.
Inconvenient.
Useful.
Easy.
The words land too close to the bruised part in me.