Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(76)

Leo held up his hand to halt our omega’s words. “Wait, Rake. You know I’m as much in favor of this as you are, but when are you planning on bringing this up with her?”

“Tonight,” Rake said, with a firm nod. “That’s why I’m glad you were all on time for once. She’ll be here soon and—”

“No.” This came from all of us. Well, all of us but Rake. His mouth fell open, and his face twisted with offense.

“What? But—”

“Rake, Lola isn’t ready to hear this yet,” Leo said, leaning forward, his eyes wide. “I absolutely agree with you. I want her to be pack. She belongs with us.” I wasn’t sure if Leo meant him and Rake specifically or us as a whole. “But I don’t think there’s any version of this offer that Lola is prepared to accept.”

Caleb cleared his throat and nodded at Leo, continuing to reason with Rake. “She’s only just getting to know the pack, and her progress is wonderful already, but I agree with Leo. It might be difficult for her to see a future with us at the moment.”

“There’s no rush,” Wes said, catching Rake’s eye.

Rake grimaced. “I mean…there kind of is. We leave for my heat tomorrow and I…I want Lola there.”

Silence fell in the wake of that announcement, and it wasn’t until I saw Rake’s crestfallen expression that I realized I was shaking my head. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to organize my thoughts as quickly as I could so I could give Rake a better answer than the flat ‘no’ on my tongue. “I don’t object to the idea. Just…I just can’t imagine her saying yes.”

“Would you want Cyrus and I out of the nest, love?” Caleb asked Rake.

“No! No, of course not, I just…” Rake sighed, and his shoulders sagged. His elbows landed on the steel island, and his hands covered his face.

“My instincts say Lola is pack,” Matthieu said in the quiet that followed. It was a big announcement. Matthieu was unofficially the head of our household, our pack. He could overrule us if he chose, although that wasn’t how Matthieu led us.

Not us, I realized. Just me. I was the only one who didn’t seem to be prepared for Lola to join our family. I liked the girl. I understood her appeal. She was just…fragile at the moment. Maybe our pack would give her strength. Or maybe, if she wasn’t ready for us, we would become an oppressive weight on her shoulders as she tried to shape herself for us.

“So do mine,” Wes said.

Rake’s hands dropped from his face, expression brighter. Wes rarely made any waves in our pack. He and Matthieu making this declaration was an interesting twist too. It should have been Caleb and I supporting Rake; we were his bonded alphas.

“I would like to see Lola in our pack. I just want her to be ready to accept,” Caleb said.

Which left me. Rake’s eyes found mine, hope winking along our bond. He was trying to keep his end quiet too, to avoid influencing me. That alone told me how seriously he was taking this discussion. Rake was not above wheedling and begging when he wanted something.

I moved around the island, wrapping my arms around Rake’s shoulders and pulling his back to my chest. His scent was so thick right before a heat, and it drew out an automatic response in me to suck and fuck and drag him off to a nest. I stamped that down and focused on the discussion.

“Invite her to the heat,” I said slowly. “If she comes, I think Caleb and I can behave ourselves.”

“Of course,” Caleb said quickly, almost eagerly.

Rake was giddy, but I pushed caution back to him as I nuzzled his temple and kissed his nearly feverish skin. “I like Lola, but I’m not prepared at this point to call her pack,” I said gently. “And I don’t think she’s prepared either. So can we table that for now?”

“Yes,” Rake said with a quick nod.

I sighed and kissed his throat. Leo’s phone chimed on the counter and he flipped it over, a smile mixing with a little tangle of worry on his brow.

“She’s on her way here.”

Rake’s grin was nervous, and he stared back at Leo. “You better coach me on how to talk to her about this, so I don’t blurt everything out at once.”





I was meant to be painting. Or maybe not meant to, but that had been my goal for the night. At least until Rake snuck out of Leo and Lola’s embrace and came slipping into my bed, needy and frosted in their scents.

Leo’s scent had never done much for me, too soapy. But Lola’s?

I’d been licking it off Rake recently. Does that mean I want her as pack? I wondered. I enjoyed women, enjoyed falling in love with women, especially ones who guarded their emotions. But I didn’t have the best track record of romances with women. With anyone who wasn’t Rake, actually. Was I impossible, or did I have bad taste?

I stared down at the neglected palette of colors I’d prepped, and then back at my canvas, grimacing at the shadows of buildings waiting to be illuminated. A cityscape. How original, I thought spitefully. This is why I was still at Designate in middle management. Not that I wanted Wendy’s job like Matthieu had been hinting. But I was never going to break out of the magazine and into galleries with cityscapes.

“Oh!”

I spun on my stool to find Lola in the doorway of my studio, her eyes wide and traveling around the room, taking in the clutter and the canvases and the art on the walls. She blushed as she met my eyes, her smile more cautious than the one she wore at work.