Page 43 of The Alpha's Fake Mate
I felt my eyebrows rise. I cocked the left one higher in a casual indifference I did not feel but needed to project to keep my sanity. I liked the idea of my own room, of course, but not my own wing. Alone in many halls gave me the creeps. I’d always been surrounded by others wherever I went on the farm, often searching for non-occupied corners in which to sit alone, but still not really alone.
I rolled my eyes to show I didn’t care. But I spoke roughly to communicate my will. “Never mind my own wing. We’ll have to interact. We’ll have to show your servants a unified pairing. Surely you do not trust them all not to gossip.”
He sat silent, gazing at me.
“So, if there’s a room next to yours that is empty?” I let my last word trail off as a not-quite question. But it was a question.
“There is,” he replied. “And I can have an office set up on the first floor for you within a day.”
It was too much. He was giving me everything. But I wasn’t about to turn any of it down. If I showed ingratitude, it was only because I didn’t want to completely freak out.
So what if he gave me rooms and stuff to put in them. It was nothing to him. He was filthy rich. He could afford it and never miss the money. It wouldn’t take away from his time because he’d hire people to bring furniture in, paint and tile, or whatever.
I knew he cared about what happened to me, but I kept having to tell myself none of this really mattered to him. It was an easy fix, a way for him to help a less fortunate Omega and look good doing it.
But he did care. And I couldn’t take that. So for me it was best to operate as if I myself didn’t.
But the errant thought kept coming back, one I wanted to wipe away. If things had been different, he might have been someone I could feel something with. He was my type, certainly, and played into all the fantasy stereotypes I had as a youth for mating and family.
I blinked hard. I wouldn’t think it. I couldn’t. The wreck of me that remained after the attack still lay about me in bloody pieces. It was my right now to hate all Alphas. I’d earned it.
“You have it figured out, then, that we must show unity,” he said softly. “And will you be able to hold hands with me in public?”
My face heated. “Of course.”
I wanted to prove to myself that I could. That it would feel like nothing. So I reached out just as the limo stopped by the front door and grabbed his hand.
The driver got out and walked to the passenger door.
I pressed my thumb and fingers against the outside of his palm, like a pinch.
He moved his hand a little until he could grip mine in a more comfortable clasp.
He was the first to leave the car. He did not let go, but pulled me out and alongside him.
Together, hand in hand, we faced the giant, three-story abode.
His palm felt hot against my skin. But it was all right, not awkward or strange. Just a hand. A tiny part of me deep inside warmed to feel it, as if I were suddenly safe and nothing could touch me in that moment.
I looked up, breathing it in, the huge structure, the columns of the porch, the way the roof peaked into an A shape and sported a curlicue trim.
On the front side of the house, above the porch, two balconies jutted out, one on the third floor, and one on the second just above the porch roof. They were adorned with potted plants of all sizes.
I heard something rustle in the grass beyond the pathway and turned to see a black cat slink around the corner of the steps. I’d never seen a cat face to face before.
“Snowball,” said Orion softly.
The cat looked up at him with big gold eyes, then flicked its gaze to me.
“You inherited him, too?” I asked.
“No. He’s mine.”
“I should have figured. Naming a black cat Snowball.”
He shrugged. “Every name I thought up for him sounded like every other cat I’d ever met or read about. Midnight. Nightmare. Shadow. Night. I was a teenager when he came to us as a stray kitten.”
Another stray. Like me. Of course it was Orion’s cat. His dad would have let him keep it, and when Orion moved away the cat simply stayed. “He’s old, then.”
