Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(16)

Her arms wrapped around her middle, fingers just peeking out of my sleeves, and someone behind me honked. I’d taken my foot off the gas.

Focus, buddy, I reminded myself. I wasn’t any good to this girl if I got us into a car accident.

“Where are we going?” Her voice made my fingers clench around the steering wheel, warm and quiet and a little raspy.

I blinked hard, clearing my head and telling my hindbrain to go fuck itself, now was not the time.

“Your cousin David asked me to take you to his apartment,” I said.

Her head drooped against the window again and I listened to her rustling into a tight ball in the seat, and then the quiet crack of plastic as she opened a water bottle. Good. I stared hard at the brake lights of the cars ahead of me as Lola gulped down water and sat in continued silence for the rest of the ride.

Give me their names, I thought to the young woman in my backseat. I could turn the car around after getting her to David, maybe call up a few of my guys who wouldn’t mind helping me out with a side project like this one.

But what if she went back? They did sometimes. My own mother had, plenty of times. In that case, Lola might be better off without my interference. Not in the long run, but…I could keep an eye out for her.

The drive ended, and somehow I didn’t feel ready. Lola was though. She’d gotten antsy in the last few minutes, as if the shock she’d been suffering was fading and she was realizing that she was alone in a car with an alpha she didn’t know.

I frowned as I parked and Lola squirmed out of my sweatshirt.

“Hang onto it,” I offered, like a fool.

“No. I…I don’t have any money to tip you,” she said, dropping my sweatshirt to the seat and frowning at her own empty hands.

She thought I was a cab service.

“It’s covered,” I said, so she didn’t worry.

She nodded and exited the back of my car, heading for the front doors of David’s apartment without a glance backward. I watched her from the curb until she stepped into the elevator, and then fished my sweatshirt from the backseat. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to save it, or burn it.





I stared out the lobby doors as Leo followed Lola into the back of Matthieu’s hired car. She’d been fine earlier, and it’d been good to see her again after all this time, as if she were more to me than a random favor to a friend. I didn’t care that she didn’t remember me; the less she remembered about those assholes who hurt her, the better. She was blonde now, still beautiful. While I’d watched her with Rake during the photoshoot, I thought she’d seemed…well, like whatever had happened to her hadn’t left deep scars.

Now I knew that wasn’t true, and I regretted deciding to let her go and not burning down that hell hole where I’d found her when I had the chance.

“What happened?” Rake repeated. “Is she claustrophobic?”

“Maybe,” Cyrus said slowly, his own stare fixed on the dark car pulling away.

“She’s scared of alphas,” Matthieu answered. His jaw was a hard line, lips pursed, and I suspected he’d known that much about Lola even before the elevator had broken down. “I suppose the power outage didn’t help,” he added, and Caleb hummed with agreement.

“Leo will make sure she gets home safely,” Caleb said.

I would’ve offered to do it myself. I’d done it before, but Rake and the others would have questions, and I’d never told them about my quick errand for David. When he called in a favor with Matthieu and Cyrus for his cousin, I’d wondered if it was Lola.

“I wanted to ask her to be my new Courtney,” Rake mused. “My Courtney upgrade. I think I still will.”

“Come on. Let’s get to the car,” I said, wondering if it would do Lola any good to get tangled up with the members of my pack. If it would do me any good, when the stunning beta was rightfully terrified of alphas.





Six





Lola





Gone, I thought, staring at the dent of the pillow the next morning. And then a cupboard door clicked quietly shut in the kitchen. My eyebrows bounced up. Not gone.

Leo was in my kitchen.

I stayed in bed, debating whether I was brave enough to face him after the humiliating reality of the night before, or if I could wait long enough and he might leave without making me face that talk he’d offered.

Except with the sounds, came smells.

Curiosity conquered cowardice, and I padded out of my bedroom. On my small breakfast nook table—the only table for dining that could fit in my tiny apartment—sat a coiled up black leather belt and silken tie stacked neatly together.

Leo had his back to me as I entered the kitchen, his white shirtsleeves rolled up tan arms as he poured batter into a waffle iron. Which was weird because…

“I don’t own a waffle maker.”

“You…didn’t,” Leo said slowly, glancing over his shoulder with innocent, wide eyes. He was still wearing his white button-down, the buttons generously open to the middle of his chest, revealing tan skin and dark hair, neatly trimmed.

I also definitely hadn’t had fresh strawberries or heavy cream or the coffee that was brewing in the machine or the sausages cooking in the skillet. The skillet was at least mine.