Page 63 of The Alpha Escort Agency
“You could never just be someone’s Omega.”
“I would, though. I’d lose myself. Who I am. I want to find out who that is first. Make something of myself.”
He works his jaw, the tendons in his neck straining.
She sighs. “Maybe if we’d met another way. Maybe if we’d met in a few years’ time. But we didn’t and I can’t see this working for us.”
“There’ll never be a perfect way to meet someone or a perfect time. There’s just the perfect person. You must feel that, Alice. This thing between us. Everything else, it doesn’t matter.” He motions as if to step towards her. Maybe if he does, maybe if he’d just take her in his arms, she’d relent, unable to resist him. But instead he holds himself back.
She shakes her head violently, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. “No, no, I don’t. I don’t feel anything at all. Nothing. Don’t you see?”
“I don’t believe you.” His jaw tightens.
She tosses her head away from him. “Of course you don’t. You Alphas never do,” she snarls at the floor. “I don’t want an Alpha trampling all over my career. Telling me I’m wrong, telling me what I can and can’t do.”
“I’d never do that.”
“You ended it, Rory. You!” she snaps, the last word catching in her throat.
Her lip trembles and she steels it. She’s not hurt, she’s not hurting. She is fine.
He takes a cautious step towards her, lifting his hand, and she backs away.
“No,” she says firmly.
His eyes swim over her face, then drop to the floor and he nods. Once, short and sharp, and a second time, longer and slower.
“I understand. But if you change your mind—”
“I won’t. You don’t need to quit the agency. You don’t need to make that choice anymore. Keep your job.”
He runs his hand through his hair and blows out a long stream of air from his nostrils. “Take care of yourself then, Alice.”
Then he’s swallowed up by the darkness and she shivers so hard against the frozen night, she can’t stand and she stumbles into one of the chairs.
Almost as soon as he’s gone, Lisa slips out onto the terrace.
“Alice. Who was that?”
Alice’s shoulders slump automatically and she forces them up, fixing her face with what she hopes is a neutral expression. Lisa smirks at her.
“No one.”
“He was seriously hot. I recognise him. I’m sure I recognise him. I just can’t place him.” She taps her finger on her chin. “Was he chatting you up?”
“No, no. He wasn’t chatting me up.” She’s trembling from the cold, but Lisa doesn’t seem to notice, her eyes wandering to the sky as she tries to recall.
“My God,” Lisa says. “I do remember!” She leans forward to whisper. “He’s one of the escorts — from the agency — you know the Alpha Escort Agency I was telling you about. I passed over his photo because I wasn’t sure about the hair — but now I’ve seen him in the flesh … something to hang on to while he bangs you senseless.” She grins like a tiger about to eat its prey and Alice swallows down bile rising in her throat. “Was he offering you his services?” She licks her lips. “That’s such a turn on. Maybe I will hire him after all — unless you were planning too?”
“No.” The bile scorches her throat, the pain making her eyes sting. “No, go ahead. I don’t mind.” The words seem to float from her mouth without her moving her lips and the spinning intensifies.
Hadn’t she just told Rory he should keep his job? She has no claim on him anymore. Even so, she’s plunging into that hole again and she can’t keep it together.
She dashes inside, heading for the toilet, unable to contain it any longer. She locks herself inside a cubicle, hovering over the bowl and dry wretches, but nothing comes, and her eyes remain dry.
No vomit, no tears, no pain.
The numbness is still there, creeping across her flesh with the cold and she feels nothing, nothing at all.
