Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(6)

“I’m good with it,” I lied, faking brightness.

“So there’s gonna be a car waiting for you.”

“David!”

“I’m not doing it every day. Just be glad I didn’t send flowers to your new desk.”

I blinked, staring down at my sink and waiting for the bout of teariness to pass. “You just wanted to make sure I wasn’t late.”

David scoffed again, but this time there was a little laugh mixed in. “Dinner tomorrow.”

“Dinner tomorrow. No fucking flowers, David.”

“No fucking flowers,” he said, imitating me in a gruff, nasal tone. He was quiet for a beat, and I was ready to hang up when he said, “Your mom would be proud of you.”

Low blow, David, I thought. And probably not the target he was aiming for. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, and then ended the call.

My mom would not be proud of me. Relieved maybe, just to see I was employed again after a year of hiding in David’s guest bedroom. But luckily for my mother and for me, she’d missed the past five years of my life. Still, if there was one thing my mother would want to say to me, it wouldn’t have to do with pride. Pretty much the opposite.

I told you so.

She’d warned me about alphas, about what they wanted from betas, and I’d tried and failed to prove her wrong over and over again.

And then I’d gone to the Devil’s Noose that night, with my best friend Baby.

As if summoned by my thoughts, my phone rang again, this time with Baby’s name across the screen. I dropped it on the counter, flipping it to speaker and ignoring the twinge that always hit my heart when I dealt with Baby. Baby, who had undergone that magical—okay, rare but biological—transformation I’d always dreamed of. One day she was a beta, and the next night at a dive bar in Old Uptown, she was a newly perfuming omega.

“Putting my face on, babe, what’s up?”

“HAPPY FIRST DAY OF WEEEERRRRKK!” Baby screamed through the phone, the horrible shrill tones bouncing around the ghastly drab pink tile of my bathroom.

“Dear god,” I muttered.

“Hi, sorry, I love you. What kind of look are you going for?” Baby rattled at rapid-fire. “Bold and daring? Pristine and angelic? Classic noir?”

“Alive,” I said, dabbing primer onto my face. “Tell Chef not to give you so much caffeine straight away in the morning, you’re supposed to pace that shit.”

“Nah, I just tell each of the guys I haven’t had any yet, so they bring me fresh mugs to bed,” Baby said.

I squawked a laugh. “Oh, the privilege of a lazy omega with a devoted pack.”

“Damn straight,” Baby said. “Late night?”

I hummed, and she hummed back. It had taken us a while to find our ease after Baby found out she was an omega—the blessed minority to be coveted and cherished and adored by alpha packs—and not a beta as she’d assumed for twenty-five years. I’d always wanted to be an omega and desperately craved the approval of alphas, so the sting when I’d first learned that Baby had been granted my wish was keen and sharp, cutting through the camaraderie between us. It didn’t help that while she was going through the deliriously happy process of getting to know her pack of alpha bikers, I was going through a personal hell with another.

Baby didn’t approve of my new weekend routine, but she definitely wouldn’t have approved if she knew I was doing it alone, and not with a small group of other betas like I lied and told her.

“It was a bust though,” I said. “How’s the crew?”

“Same, same,” Baby said. “Wanna get lunch soon? Maybe somewhere fancy Downtown? My treat!”

More like one of her alpha’s treats, but Baby and her guys were always very careful to keep her alphas out of my way. Sometimes Seth, her beta, would join Baby and me on our lunch dates, but mostly they let her hang out with me alone.

“It’s a date,” I said.

“Yay. Okay, I’ll let you focus on your wing liner,” Baby said. Baby mostly skipped a makeup routine, which was good because she could injure herself and three others with a liner pencil.

“Love you, babe.”

“Love you, Lo.”

I sighed as she hung up and rolled my shoulders. Okay, so we were mostly back to normal. I still got a bit tense, but I didn’t want Baby to carry that for me. My mistakes were on me.

I glared at my reflection again. Limp blonde hair. Hollow cheeks. Lips chapped from nervous biting and picking. I couldn’t decide if I was the before picture in a self-improvement ad, or the after image from a serious wreckage.

I used my foundation to paint on clean, even skin, hiding away the dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep and the bouts of acne on my chin and forehead from stress. Despite getting a job as an assistant beauty editor, I was planning on keeping it low-key. I wanted to go in and get my work done at Designate. I wanted to earn the place David had found for me, but I didn’t want to catch a lot of attention. At least, not from my appearance.

Because there would be alphas at Designate. The head of my Department was an alpha, although I’d been hired in my interviews by a team of betas. But it was a major magazine, and even the CEO of the media company that owned Designate was an alpha, not that I expected to run into him in the offices. I’d learned my lesson when it came to alphas. I was done being one of those betas who chased after a pack that couldn’t care less about me.