Chapter 1 #2
“Can you wait until after the baby is born, please? I need to earn some money before he comes along.”
“I can send you some money.”
“No.”
Presley sighed. “Okay.”
“I have to go. Work calls.” I hung up before she could say anything else. Before the crack in my voice widened into something I couldn’t tape shut.
And before she got to tell me her news.
I could call back, but chose to set the phone face-down on the mattress because I didn’t trust myself not to call her back.
Calling Presley back would mean admitting she was right, and that would make me cry.
Crying would mean my nose would block up, and when my nose blocked up, I couldn’t smell anything, and that was dangerous for an omega.
So I didn’t cry. I’d gotten good at that.
I hadn’t cried about my tiny home. How could I when I’d upgraded from a caravan?
I hadn’t cried about my finances, despite having a childhood where I had it all.
I had nearly cried about the lack of having a cot ready for my baby to sleep in, and obviously, because I have a heart, when I found Fergus soaked through and took him in.
I really should cry about my growing cankles, and having to switch to decaf.
But I was brought up in an Irish mafia household. We were taught to always be brave.
Rain now tapped against the window. Scotland had two weather settings, neither great. It was either rain or about-to-rain. But I’d chosen to live in Edinburgh because nobody looks for an Irish omega in a city where everyone’s scent is permanently damp. Even the alphas here smelled like wet wool.
The baby wriggled inside me. A gentler movement this time. A roll, hopefully just turning over in his sleep.
"We’ll be fine, won’t we?" I whispered, putting a hand where his foot was.
I looked at the coat hanging on the back of the door.
The white fluffy coat. The one from Prague, the one that still smelled faintly of the same impossible blend I had spent nine months trying not to need if I buried my face deep enough into the collar, which I absolutely did not do every night before bed.
That would be pathetic, and I wasn’t pathetic.
I was a small business owner. I was a survivor.
I was an independent omega who had fled a mafia ex, and three hot Russian alphas. I was doing just fine.
It was the same coat I’d found a credit card in the pocket when I fled Prague.
I’m not proud that I used it to pay my hotel bill, the cab ride to the airport, and the food I ate at the airport because the three alphas had fucked me for days and I lacked fuel.
But I’ve never once used it since I returned to the UK. That would be stupid.
But I was so tempted.
I pulled the laptop across the duvet and opened the baby catalog to look at the checkout screen.
I’d been staring at it on and off for three weeks.
The same cot. The same car seat for taxi journeys.
The same sensible changing mat with the machine-washable cover that cost sixty quid and looked like it might actually be capable of containing the biological chaos of a newborn.
I could just make one quick transaction. They should pay. It was just under one thousand pounds.
Could I?
My bank account had forty-three pounds in it.
The shop’s account had two hundred, but that was earmarked for the bean supplier who would cut me off if I missed another payment.
My last remaining family asset was my pride.
But Edinburgh was expensive, and my son was going to need somewhere to sleep in a matter of days, and the drawer I’d thought to use was not, upon reflection, going to cut it.
"Fergus," I said. "I need you to be honest with me."
Fergus looked up from the slipper. One ear was up. One was down. He’d never quite figured out the synchronization.
“Should I use this card?”
Fergus tilted his head to one side.
“If I have the delivery going to the post office, who’d find us?”
He stared at me and I tried again. “Okay, I’m going to make this very large, very illegal and potentially dangerous order, and then when it arrives we are going to go for a walk…” Fergus wagged his tail, “to the post office to pick it up. Because it would be stupid to have it delivered here.”
I didn’t want to have three Russian men tracking the transaction to this address.
“Would you like a navy-blue blanket?”
Fergus wagged his tail.
"Good choice."
Fergus barked. One sharp, decisive, supportive bark. The bark of a dog who understood priorities and that the flat was getting colder.
I glanced at the screen and added a blanket for Fergus and two for me. And two fluffy cushions. The weather was getting colder. And if I was in for a penny, I might as well be in for a pound.
I still paused for a moment while my finger hovered over the touchpad. The cursor blinked on the "PLACE ORDER" button.
"This is a terrible idea," I said to Fergus.
He went back to my slipper with more gusto than before.
I thought about my son sleeping in a drawer. About Artem’s whisper. Then I thought about the fact that soon I was going to push a small human out of my body with no partner, no pack, no family, and nothing but a Yorkshire Terrier for company.
"Oh, for the love of God."
I clicked.
The screen loaded, and a wheel spun before the confirmation popped up.
ORDER PLACED.
I swallowed as the email pinged a second later. One thousand and forty-two pounds, ninety pence, charged to Mr Ivan Petrov.
I stared at the screen and suddenly blood rushed into my ears. "Well, Fergus," I said. "We had a good run. how long do you think we have? W week?"
Fergus sneezed.
"Yeah, three days if I'm lucky." I closed the laptop, put my hand on my stomach, and waited for the world to catch fire.