Chapter 18
JENNIFER
I'm trying to do the thing where I pretend I'm not exhausted and act as if everything's together on the outside, but inside all I'm thinking about is my bed right now. After I'm done with this sauce, I'm definitely going to take a nap. I deserve it.
"They'd like to see you in the main study before lunch," Carmen says as she approaches me.
Why didn't she tell me before? She has been here all morning and said nothing.
"But I'm making a sauce," I protest.
"I understand, but you've been working hard all morning. We both have, which is why I forgot to tell you."
It's as if she read my mind. I think she was up to something, but it was innocent. I need to stop being so paranoid, but I can't help it when it comes to those three.
"It will break if I leave it."
Carmen looks at me. Then back at the sauce. "I'll watch it," she offers.
No, Carmen. I've been avoiding them, I want to keep avoiding them, please don't do this. I know I have no choice. My aim is to get through the time on the island without falling apart, and this is what I intend to do.
I hand her the whisk and give her very specific instructions about heat and movement and what will happen if she stops whisking even for a second, and she nods to show she understood. So I take off my apron and go.
"Don't worry, they don't bite. They're harmless really," she says. She can probably pick up on my fear. She has no idea why I'm really nervous, and I'm not about to tell her. We've only known each other for a short time, and I really need this job.
The main house is cool inside, all that white stone keeping the heat out, and I've only been in here twice since I arrived, both times to deliver food and leave immediately on the grounds that the longer I spend in their space the more likely something goes catastrophically wrong.
The study is at the back, overlooking the water, because of course it is, because every room in this house overlooks the water because this is a billionaire island and nothing about it is understated.
I knock.
"Come in," Tomas says.
All three of them are in there, which is not a surprise and is also a problem.
Santos at the window, because Santos gravitates toward light like something photosynthetic, his dark hair slightly undone the way it always is, the tattoo on his neck catching the morning sun.
He's in a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and I have approximately zero business noticing that and I notice it immediately.
Matteo is behind the desk. Of course he is. That is where Matteo belongs, behind a large solid object that communicates authority, pale blue eyes already on me before I've fully entered the room, doing the thing where he reads you without advertising it.
Tomas is in the chair nearest the door with his glasses on.
The glasses are still doing things they have absolutely no business doing and I am not going to acknowledge that today or any other day for the rest of my life, so help me.
"Jennifer," Matteo says.
"Matteo," I say, because we are apparently doing this now, using first names like adults, fine.
Santos turns from the window and smiles, just like he did at the roulette table, distracting me for a minute.
Focus. They speak. I leave.
His saffron scent reaches me half a second later. Warm. Sharpening.
Tomas gestures toward the chair on my side of the desk. I sit. I fold my hands in my lap and look at all three of them in sequence and wait.
Matteo opens a folder. "We wanted to talk to you about the arrangement."
"The job," I say. "You mean the job."
"Yes."
"My job. That I am currently doing. Correctly."
Santos is still looking at me. He does this thing where his tongue moves briefly over his lower lip, unhurried, barely there, and my entire nervous system files an immediate complaint.
I look at the folder.
"You're doing it very well," Tomas says. His voice is the low even kind that bypasses your brain and goes somewhere else entirely, and his warmth is sitting in the warm study air doing absolutely nothing helpful.
I fix my expression into something professional.
"Thank you," I say. "So this meeting is over?"
Really, they called me here just to say this?
Matteo looks at me steadily. Those pale eyes, unhurried. His scent coming through the room to find me whether I allow him to or not.
I press my thumbnail into my palm under the desk where no one can see.
"No," Matteo says quickly. There's so much tension in the air, their scents make me feel as if I'm suffocating and my omega is talking nonsense.
Matteo's jaw tightens once. "We want to discuss the situation," he says. "Going forward. Given the circumstances."
"Like you're going to stop hanging outside my room?"
"No. Yes. I meant no," Matteo says and his face grows red.
"Or did you want to leave another five thousand dollars by the nightstand again?"
Yes, I'm angry. Pissed. They call me here and then they say nothing.
Santos tilts his head. "Jennifer."
"Santos."
"We are trying to have a conversation with you."
"Then tell me what you want?" I look at him. The saffron in his warmth is sitting in the warm air of the study and my nose is absolutely not engaging with that.
“We have something to tell you,” Matteo says.
It's him. I bet he was the one that left the money.
"What?" Santos, Tomas, and I say in unison.
I jump up, as if the seat is made of hot coals.
I place my hands on the desk, trying to steady myself.
"Jennifer?" Tomas is already standing.
“It’s all good,” I say.
Then heat moves through me again, stronger this time, and my rose scent does something absolutely mortifying and entirely without my permission, just opens up in the warm study air like it has been waiting for an opportunity and has decided this boardroom confrontation is the one.
"Oh no," I say quietly.
Santos straightens from the window.
"No," I say, to no one in particular, mostly to my own biology, which is clearly not listening.
The third wave is not subtle.
"Sit down," Matteo says, and he's already moving around the desk, which I want to tell him is unnecessary, except my legs have apparently submitted their resignation without consulting me and sitting down does seem like a reasonable response to what is currently happening to my body.
"I'm okay,” I say again, from the chair.
"It's not warm in here," Santos says.
"It's like there's a fire in here," I gasp, finding it hard to breathe.
"Your scent," Tomas says, and his voice has dropped into something careful and measured, the voice of someone managing a situation. "Jennifer. When did you last—"
"I can't be going into heat again. I had pre-heat less than a week ago," I say firmly.
They exchange looks, then Tomas is watching me with his gray eyes and his glasses and the particular focused attention of a man putting a picture together one piece at a time.
"Why?" Tomas says.
"Because I am pregnant and I was not supposed to have another one," I say through my teeth. Another wave. I grip the armrests.
"Let us take care of you," Santos says, and he's crouched in front of me now, which is a wildly unfair position for him to be in given that his scent is everywhere and my rose has apparently staged a full coup. "Jennifer. Let us."
"You messed everything up," I tell him, and my voice comes out rougher than I intend. "I don't trust you. Any of you. I think Matteo has been coming to my room at night, thinking I didn't forget what you did in Vegas."
"We know," Santos says. "We're sorry."
"Right now I need my beurre blanc and possibly some cold water."
"We called you in here to apologize," Matteo says as he kneels beside me.
"This doesn't change anything," I say. "Just so we're clear. Whatever this is, it doesn't change the job or the contract or the plan."
"Understood," Tomas says.
"And I need to get paid."
"You'll get paid," Matteo says.
"Full amount," Santos agrees.
"Okay," I say. "But I can't be in heat. Not with the baby."
"Baby?" Santos says.
I can't be doing this right now. Not with them. I thought heat cycles stop when you're pregnant. I think I read it once, but then again, nothing makes sense anymore.
"Baby," Santos repeats.
Another silence, longer this time, all three of them processing at different speeds and in completely different ways, which I don't have the bandwidth to manage because I am sitting in a chair going into heat at fourteen weeks pregnant in a study that smells exactly like every reason this is happening and I am having a very eventful Tuesday.
"Call the doctor," Matteo says to Tomas, who is already on the phone.
"I don't need a doctor," I say.
"You're pregnant and going into heat," Matteo says. "You need a doctor."
"It's probably just pre-heat. It'll pass."
"It will not just pass."
"You don't know that."
"Jennifer." He comes around the chair and crouches where Santos was, pale blue eyes very direct. "Let us help you. That's all. Just let us help."
My rose scent says absolutely yes, immediately, without hesitation, fully on board.
The rest of me takes a moment longer.
"The baby's fine," I say. "Whatever happens. She's fine."
Something moves through Matteo's expression that I don't have the energy to categorize.
"She," Santos says softly, behind me.
"I don't know that," I say. "It's a feeling."
The doctor arrives within minutes. By that time I'm lying on the sofa in their study.
Matteo found blankets and pillows to make me comfortable.
Santos found a cool towel and keeps patting me with it, whereas Tomas has been feeding me grapefruit.
He says it's good for the system and the baby.
I'm not sure how he knows these things, but it wasn't the time to ask.
She's silver-haired and brisk and takes one look at me on the sofa and then at the three alphas arranged around me like a very concerned architectural feature and says, "Right then."
She checks me over.
"Pre-heat, yes," she says. "Given the pregnancy it'll be compressed, maybe a day rather than the usual.
But she needs quiet, warmth, and close alpha presence to get through it safely.
" She closes her bag. "Nothing strenuous.
The baby is fine, no concerns there. She just needs to be looked after for the next twenty-four hours. "
"We can do that," Tomas says.
"No," I say at the same time.
The doctor looks between us.
"We can do that," Santos says.
Another wave moves through me, longer than the others, and my rose scent fills the entire room and I feel all three of them react to it simultaneously, which is information I don't need and also impossible to ignore.
"Okay," I say. "Fine. Twenty-four hours."
Santos makes a sound that might be relief.
Their combined presence settles over everything, and my omega, that traitorous biological entity, goes completely quiet and still and warm.
The doctor gives them instructions and they try to take care of me.
I may be in pre-heat and pregnant, but I'm not forgetting what happened in Vegas.
I'm just glad they left me alone with the doctor.
If they hadn't, then they would have figured out how far along I am and that the baby is theirs.
I can only deal with one kind of drama at a time.