Chapter 47
JAMIE
Morgan and I sit in one of the mansion’s dozen living rooms. She reads as I watch Home Wreck Fixer on a TV that rose up out of the floor with the flip of a switch. Our libidos finally settle out, and we nestle into each other.
Then I feel it—like a twist of vertigo, a sinking that makes every limb twice as heavy.
Shit. I spoke too soon. I’m crashing.
Shame churns in my gut. I should have known it was coming.
That unmistakable feeling of abject dread.
“I, um, I’m just going to run to the bathroom,” I say, and Morgan nods, giving me an affectionate look.
“Don’t be too long,” she teases.
I smile, nod, and keep my pace natural as I head towards the hall. Then I walk faster, crossing over to the other side of the estate—half because I’m already utterly lost and I forget which door is the bathroom, and half because I need distance between us.
Before it happens.
Before I break.
I open a door to find a bedroom I haven’t seen before, but Morgan said each one has an attached bathroom, so I push through and find the door on the other side. I lock it behind me as I step into a bathroom crafted entirely of flowing white-and-purple-veined marble.
With every step away from Morgan, the temperature seemed to drop another degree. While I was still moving, I could distract myself, but now there’s no stopping it—I’m shaking, shivering, freezing.
I curl in on myself, sinking onto the microfiber bathmat, yearning for the familiar scent of my bed back home—not my apartment, where the mattress still smells vaguely of polymer, but Pleasantwood, the only place I’ve ever felt truly safe.
The tears hit in a violent wave—ugly, deep, agonizing. This isn’t just the aching, unbearable loneliness.
This is a hundred times worse.
This is my ribs being pried open, my heart being cut out.
I clutch my knees to my chest, burying my face in my arms, trying to muffle my sobs. At least I’m too far away for Morgan to hear. At least I’m not embarrassing myself, giving her good reason to put more distance between us.
“Jamie?” her voice calls.
No, no… I try to hold my breath, to quiet myself.
Her footsteps approach the door, and she knocks. “Jamie? I can smell you.”
She tests the door and finds it locked. There’s a scraping noise, and the door opens from the hinges first, the two pins in her hand.
As her scent hits me, my sobs deepen.
Suddenly the cold floor is gone and her arms are around me, my cheek pressed to her chest.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “It’s just a—a hormone thing—”
“Shhh,” she says, kissing my head. “I’ve got you.”
The tears don’t stop, but the agony eases as I cling to her chest, filling my nose with her scent. I stop shivering.
Gradually, the sobs subside, leaving quiet tears.
Morgan brushes her thumb across my cheeks, drying them. Without putting me down, she moves over until she can reach the toilet paper, yanking off a long strip for me to blow my nose on.
“Does this happen every time?” she asks.
“Yeah… not usually quite this bad, but…”
“Still bad?”
“Yeah.”
Her arms tighten around me. “I’m sorry.”
I shake my head against her chest. “It’s not your fault.”
“It… kind of is. But even generally. I’m sorry you have to go through that.”
I wipe my eyes with a clean bit of toilet paper. Wow, this stuff is soft. “I’m fine. It’s not that bad.”
“It seems pretty bad.”
“I mean, it’s… nothing I can’t handle.”
“Jamie, you’re not going to spontaneously combust if you let someone feel bad for you.”
The words warm my core, but I still pout. “You don’t know that.”
She squeezes me tight.
“Well… my heat is officially over,” I murmur. “So I guess we can get back on the road? Er, the skies?”
“Jamie, I… cancelled the rest of the tour.”
“What? Why?”
“Other alphas will smell me on you. And vice versa. It’s not good for optics.”
“Optics. Right.” Fuck optics, I want to say, but I get it. Morgan’s right. The way I look at her now… I can’t hide that. Not with all the coaching in the world. Not with a suppressant overdose. I could have had so much more time with her if I weren’t just… I don’t know. Such an omega.
I can’t be selfish. This is Morgan’s life’s work, and thousands—maybe millions—of omegas depend on this deal with the state.
I force a wry smile. “So… I go back to the science, you go back to the CEO-ing?”
Morgan is quiet for a beat too long. “Yeah.”
The ache in my chest shifts to that familiar loneliness. “Do I have to, like… sign an NDA about this? About us? Can people know?”
The silence is heavy. Morgan finally answers, “It’s better if they don’t know.”
“Right. That makes sense. Solves the HR problem…”
Morgan kisses the back of my neck. “I didn’t mean to get into this yet. I wanted more time… for you to recover. Hydrate.” The last word is delivered like a joke, but her tone falls flat.
“Yeah, sorry…”
“Don’t apologize.” Her fingers trace soothing circles across my back.
I do my very best to muster my sense of humor. I’m ready to handle this how I always do—ignore the bad feelings, and eventually they’ll go away. “So… what, one more jet hop back across the pond?”
“About that… I need to stay local to finish some business.”
“Oh.”
“You could… stick around the extra few days, if you wanted to.”
I think about being alone in this massive house. Or, even worse, together with Morgan knowing that this is it. This is the end. Vacation is over. Time to go back to real life.
It would be torture. And not the fun kind.
“I think it’s… better if I head home.”
She nods against my neck. “I’ll have Eileen book the tickets. Any special requests?”
“A time machine,” I murmur.
“I’ll get the labs working on that.”
“This trip was… really good. Thank you. I’m glad we could… even if only… for a little while…”
She takes a breath under me, as if to say something, but she hesitates.
It’s like Schrodinger’s inhale. For one precious moment, her next words might be anything.
Finally, she says, “Yeah. Me too.”