Page 34 of Omega's Fire

“Tomorrow. Eleven a.m.,” I repeat.

I hang up before she can object further, my heart pounding. I sit on the edge of the bed wrapped in my towel and compose a message to Leo:

I’ve scheduled our bonding ceremony for tomorrow, 11 a.m. I know your first thought is to say no but we are amazing together. You know it too. Forget the politics. I don’t mindadmitting that sometimes I get things wrong. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me.

So much for pride, but I don’t care.

I hit send, watching the screen for those double check marks that indicate delivery. They appear, but there’s no indication he’s read the message. Five minutes pass. Ten. Nothing.

I try again, fingers hovering over the keys before typing:

We can talk about this. Let’s have a coffee. I know we can find a way to make it work.

I wait for the double check marks but they don’t appear. The message stays on a single tick.

He’s blocked me.

I toss the phone onto the bed, right next to the pillow still covered with Leo’s shirt.

I stretch out beside the pillow, pressing my face against the fabric and that’s how I spend the night. I don’t even get dressed. I just lie there with his scent in my nose.

I wake early, horny and miserable. Leo’s scent is pure heaven and pure torture right at the same time. He should be here in my bed, under me as I drive into him and we both go mad with it.

I reach for my phone immediately. I have a single text from Rowe

I’ve has agreed to the ceremony. You better be right that Torres is going to show up. Don’t fuck this up.

Nothing from Leo. I send him a message anyway.I’ll be there at 11.I hesitate, fingers hovering over the phone. Fuck it. I want to marry this man. There’s no point in being coy. I add:I love you.

The phone stays on a single tick. Leo will have had the notification from the Bureau. He’ll know the choice he has to make this morning, and that’s the point. He is being given a choice. He doesn’t have to come but by God, I hope he does.

I put on my charcoal suit again. The first time was forour initial ceremony. I knew then he wouldn’t show, but I went through the motions anyway, playing my part. Today is different. Today he knows what it is like to be with me.

He might be there.

My phone buzzes with a text from Sun at the Bureau:Press outside the Bureau office. Someone tipped them off about the ceremony.

Perfect. Just what this disaster needs—an audience.

I run a hand through my hair, checking my reflection one final time. If Leo is going to reject me again, at least I’ll look fucking impeccable while he does it.

An hour later, cameras flash as I climb the steps to the Bureau’s main entrance. I paste on a smile.

“Dr. Thorndike! Is it true Leo Torres has publicly rejected your match?”

“Dr. Thorndike! Has Torres agreed to marry you?”

I wave them off trying not to think about what the morning holds. Hope is a dangerous thing.

Director Rowe meets me in the lobby, her expression tight with annoyance.

“This is ill-advised, Nash,” she says without preamble, voice pitched low to avoid the hovering press. “A second public rejection will damage both your reputation and the Bureau’s.”

“He might come,” I reply. I’m not giving up hope on this.

“Might? Thorndike, you better have more than ‘might’.

She gives me a look that borders on pity, and it takes everything in me not to flinch. “I’m told he’s giving an interview downtown this morning. I can only hope that I am wrong about that and you are right”

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