Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(24)

“Hey, what’s that? Alphas, I get. But Rake?” he whispered, picking up on my discomfort.

I swallowed down the truth and forced myself to relax. “I like this, between us, and I’m definitely not in it to come between you and your pack. I just need things to be…separate,” I said. “I know it’s not just us, but—”

“I understand,” Leo said, reaching one hand up from my waist to run his fingers through my hair. “Just us.”

I winced. I was totally the ‘other woman,’ which was the last thing I wanted. I especially didn’t want to be another beta in Rakim’s life who tried to wedge themselves between him and one of his pack.

But with an omega, came alphas. Even having lunch with Rakim, I’d walked around the rest of the day with a lingering whiff of his perfume.

The night Baby’s perfume had come in, I’d gotten one decent hit of her scent on my skin when I hugged her. And then I’d landed myself in an alpha’s bed. Buzz’s.

And that one had been a hard trap to untangle myself from.

So Rakim could bring me flowers and hire me to do his makeup in an emergency. He might be stunningly handsome and delightfully playful company. But it was hard enough being friends with one omega and keeping my boundaries safely in place. Rakim seemed like he was the kind of persistent that would make boundaries impossible.

“Lola, you’re so tense, you’ve got me worried,” Leo said softly, pressing a kiss into my hair. “What can I do?”

I coached my limbs into softening, my breaths into slowing. “I’m fine. Tell me about your week.”





Leo walked me to the tent security, my hand in his, but there was an awkward kind of quiet between us ever since he’d teased me about Rake. He stopped me before I joined the line, tugging me closer with a gentle twitch of our linked hands. He was frowning, eyes scanning my face, and I was almost relieved at the thought that maybe I’d ruined things between us already.

Relationships were already a complicated addition to my life, and getting involved with someone in a pack was the worst kind of idea, wasn’t it?

“Hey. Don’t stress about anything but the job, okay?” Leo said.

I nodded and found him bending down to me. I arched to meet him in the kiss without thinking, a soft gasp on my lips. Had I forgotten how easy it was to kiss Leo in the past week? Apparently, because I found myself leaning in and opening to him, the restless worry of the morning evaporating with every pass of his lips over mine.

“Maybe I should’ve started the morning like this,” he whispered as I melted into his chest.

“Maybe,” I agreed. “Sorry I was off while we had time together.”

“Forgiven. Sorry I added a bit of worry to your plate,” he answered.

I smiled and stared up at him. The city was blue around him, dawn only just making a commitment to brighten the day. I took a greedy pass of my hand over his chest and wondered how hard it would be to steal his sweater. I was pretty sure it was cashmere and it felt like actual heaven on my skin.

“Rake’s gonna try and talk you into going to about fifty after parties with him,” Leo warned. He raised an eyebrow, “You’re welcome to claim a date with me to get out of them, but for the sake of realism, I would advise actually having the date with me.”

“Ahh to keep up the illusion,” I said, and Leo’s grin grew at the same time as mine. “Noted.”

He snatched another, rougher kiss from my lips before backing away. “Break a leg, just not Rake’s. He’s a terrible patient.”

I bit my lip as I waited in the short line to get inside, giving my name and showing my I.D. My stomach was flipping, and it wasn’t just nerves about the first day of fashion week. Life was turning into kind of a rollercoaster. I’d woken up, sweaty and shaking from my nightmare, only to rocket quickly between comfort and safety with Leo to instant insecurity, and then back to feeling happy and giddy.

Granted, I’d spent the last year in a massive extended low point. I was generally out of practice with dealing with fluctuating emotions.

“Lola!”

Rake was already here, shirtless and in low slung sweatpants, standing with a group of models. I rushed over to him, and he stepped out of their circle.

“Sorry, you’re not late or anything. I’m just excited to see you. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Maureen, she’s doing the makeup on this show and a few others I’m in this week. She’ll give you some resistance to start with, but when she sees you know what you’re doing, you’ll be golden with her. She hated Courtney anyway.”

My eyes were on Rake’s shoulders as he led the way through the narrow curtained-off backstage of the tent. He had a tattoo on the back of his shoulders, a flower digging through the muscle of his back, thorns piercing the skin and petals dropping down his right side. The blooms looked almost like a rose but with rounder petals, and I wanted to reach out and trace them with my fingers.

Rake was still talking, mostly pointing people out and their significance. I noted his dresser, Diane, an older black woman with a warm smile and a beautiful pile of box braids like a crown on her head, as well as our two massive beta security guards that followed at a comfortable distance. Everything else I let filter through. Rake was chatty, and I wasn’t sure if it was caffeine, nerves, or just him naturally, but he didn’t seem to mind my quiet, so I sipped my coffee and followed him through the crowd.