The Boss Omega (East Rock Omegaverse #1)

Chapter 4

Lark

Cammie snaps her fingers in front of my face.

“Pay attention. This one matters.”

She’s holding a frosted glass bottle in front of my face. Arctic Heat Relief Mist.

“Small wellness brand out of Seattle. Our omega testers gave it an eighty-eight percent approval rating,” she gushes. “It absorbs in under thirty seconds, and it doesn’t clash with personal scent. That’s huge.”

Cammie spritzes it into the air. It’s cool, faintly medicinal. Like cucumbers at a spa. I can smell my own scent underneath it, caramel and salt, and Cammie’s softer vanilla and lavender.

Good. Omegas don’t want to be erased. Just cooled off without feeling like they’re bathing in chemicals.

At OmegaBox, we don’t make the products.

We curate the things we like and send them out in a subscription box customized for the unique preferences of omegas across the US and Canada.

Which means somewhere out there, a wellness company is very proud of inventing a mist that helps cool omegas during their heat, and we are the gatekeepers standing between them and three point five thousand hormonal omegas with credit cards.

Normally, I love this part. The testing reports. The charts. The notes from our volunteer panel. It helps ensure that every item we choose for our monthly shipment is special and perfect for omegas, bonded or unbonded.

Not today.

Cammie tosses it onto the table and grabs the next item from the sample pile.

“Okay, this one tested insanely well. Nesting blanket. Weighted edges so it feels like a hug. Breathable bamboo blend. Ninety-two percent approval from our unbonded omega testers. Comes in lavender, sky blue, sunset pink, and mint green.”

“Mint pink,” I murmur.

“What?”

“Hmm?”

I check my phone.

9:18 a.m. My meeting is at ten.

Cammie narrows her light blue eyes. “You just said ‘mint pink.’ Are you even listening?”

“Of course,” I insist.

She picks up a delicate teal necklace with a smooth oval pendant.

“Chew safe anxiety charm. Helps to reduce the desire to bite when you’re going through heat with Alpha Now, not Alpha Forever.

We don’t have a lot of data because the target audience is so specific, but the two testers we could find loved it. ”

“I love biting,” I say automatically.

Cammie freezes. “What?”

I blink. “I mean… no. No, I just –”

She sets the necklace down. “You’re like full-on glitching today. What is up with you?”

I smooth my skirt that doesn’t need smoothing, then pick up my phone to check the time.

9:19

Cammie crosses her arms. “Seriously. What’s going on?”

I pick up the phone again. Still 9:19.

Fuck.

“Nothing. I didn’t sleep well.”

“Lark.”

I hate when she says my name in her I’m-your-best-friend-don’t-pull-any-shit-with-me voice.

I exhale. “I have a meeting today and I’m a little nervous about it.”

“With who?” I should have known that she wouldn’t let this go.

“Um,” I hedge. She narrows her eyes again. “Fine! With Riverside.”

“I’m going to need a little more to go on. This whole damn town is Riverside something or other.”

“This town is East Rock, not Riverside.” I know she’s talking about business names. Everything along the water calls itself Riverside because, well, river.

She slouches in her chair and props her feet on the seat next to her, a woman with nowhere better to be. Waiting. For information. My information.

And this is one hundred percent why you should not hire your best friend in the world to be your company’s VP of Product Curation.

Because in a meeting that’s supposed to be all about which items should be included in the December membership box, it ends up being a girlfriend session where I spill all my guts.

And because it’s, I check my phone again, 9:20 in the morning I’m not even drinking margaritas like a normal person.

I mean, if you’re going to spill your guts, it should be over margs and tacos, right?

I pick up the necklace. It’s smooth and cool against my fingers and smells faintly of plastic and packing material, which is deeply unsexy. I bite down anyway. I’m not in danger of chomping down on any alphas today, but it does help to ease my anxiety a bit. Maybe I’ll keep this one for myself.

“Ahem,” Cammie clears her throat. “I have all day. Every meeting after this one is movable.”

“Ish jush a meeting. No big deawh,” I mumble around a mouthful of plastic beads.

“Lark.”

I pull the necklace from my mouth. “Fine. I’m going to the Riverside Elite Heat Management Clinic.”

Cammie sits up and drops her feet back to the floor, her big blue eyes two times larger than normal. “Ohmygod,” she says in a single breath. “I’m so glad. I was worried you would chicken out! Your last heat was so—” She gesticulates wildly with her hands as if they can do all the talking for her.

And maybe they can because no additional words are needed. We both know what happened last time. I attempted to ride out my heat alone. How hard could it be, right? I mean hundreds of omegas do it every single week.

Unfortunately for me, I’m that one percent whose heats are so painful and long that I can’t function. Not even a little bit. Even when using pain management medication.

My last heat lasted seven days. I was so out of it with intense cramping that I didn’t take care of myself.

Seven days without food? Miserable but survivable.

Seven days without water? Straight to the ER. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

By the time my fog started to clear, I was so weak and dehydrated I couldn’t even make it out of my nest. It took every ounce of energy I could muster to roll to the edge and call 911 from the smartwatch charging on a nearby table.

I spent four days in the hospital, and another three weeks recuperating at home.

On the bright side, I learned that I could do my job from my couch.

Aside from warehouse drop-ins, I have zero reason to leave my apartment.

Which is how I managed to leave Garden Brook, the city where my warehouses are located, and move to East Rock, a charming university town with great medical centers, awesome museums, and a vibrant music and art scene.

It’s only thirty minutes away, but it feels like a totally different world.

I bought a large apartment in Grant Towers with a sweeping view of the river below.

Cammie bought a space two floors down. Hers is a one bedroom.

I turned my second bedroom into an office.

It sits on the opposite side, so it has a view of the town instead of river.

The view is still good, but more importantly, the space is large enough to hold my sprawling desk and a table for six which is where Cammie and I sit now.

We could do these meetings online, but why would we want to? We can’t split a box of donuts and fuss at each other for stealing the best ones when we meet on Zoom.

“So, Riverside Elite. That’s the swanky one, right?”

I fidget with the beads on the necklace. “It’s more than the other options,” I say, “but worth it. They can help pair me with compatible alphas while offering some assurance of privacy. I’m not exactly a celebrity, but ‘OmegaBox CEO’s Heat Preferences’ is not a headline I want trending online.”

Cammie nods her head. “Totes agree. Plus, it’s not like you don’t have the funds to swing it.”

True. My parents left me a hefty trust fund when they passed, so even if my company wasn’t doing well, I could still afford to pay the exorbitant costs the clinic charges.

I check my phone again.

9:28

“If I leave now, I have time to stop by Nayda’s Café for a brown sugar latte.”

“Girl, you’ve already eaten two donuts and slurped down a giant iced coffee.”

“First, it’s cheat day. You know that.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Second, best friends don’t track donuts eaten. Golden rule of friendship. Besides, I’m going to need strength and fortitude for this meeting. Since I can’t guarantee either, I’ll take caffeine and sugar.”

“Well then, have another,” Cammie says as she stuffs a donut in my hand then leans in for a hug. “Good luck. Text me after.”

“I will,” I mumble around a mouthful of maple glazed.

“Take your dad’s car. You always feel like a badass when you drive it.”

She’s right. I need all the confidence I can get. And, honestly, who wouldn’t feel like a totally savage diva while driving a ’68 baby blue Corvette?

“And let me know if there are any hot alphas in the look book!”