Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(77)

“The door’s always been closed before and I wanted to snoop. Sorry,” she said, grinning a little.

“Snoop away.” I jerked my head in invitation, watching as she stepped in without hesitation. Rake was right. Lola had already overcome a lot of her fear of the alphas in this pack. Still, I was sure she was a long way from imagining herself taking a permanent place with us.

“I didn’t know you were a painter,” she said, moving slowly around the room. “Oh, Cyrus! You painted the angel on the stairs didn’t you?”

I sat up a little straighter at that. “I did, ages ago. I’m surprised you noticed.”

“The brush strokes are the same. It’s absolutely beautiful,” she said, spinning and beaming at me.

It hit me then like a punch to the gut, a craving for her. If she had been any other girl, any one of the ones Rake had been interested in in the past, I would have reached out for her and dragged her between my thighs. I could’ve dug paint smudged fingers into her hair and scratched my teeth along her jaw until she was whining and begging for me.

But she was Lola, so I kept my hands to myself.

It wasn’t the first time I was attracted to her. Lola was stunning and had a kind of crystalline femininity that tempted me. But it was the first time it came with questions bigger than the usual physical ones. Is this girl pack?

I was lost in my own head when she stopped at a stack of paintings, pulling one forward to peek behind at the next.

“Is this…is this Wendy?” she asked.

I cleared my throat and slid off my stool, moving to stand at her side. She didn’t flinch, even when my arm brushed her shoulder.

“You’ve found my old lovers,” I said, studying her expression as she looked up at me.

She had Rake’s scent all over her, and I wondered what he was doing if Lola was out of his bed.

“You paint your lovers?” she asked, a wicked little grin on her face.

“I paint my break-ups.” I leaned in and Lola remained still as I moved the paintings out of their usual stack so she could see a few sitting side by side. I pointed to the one I’d painted of Wendy, trying not to look too closely and get lost in old emotions. “It reads left to right, like a sentence. All the optimism of the start of a new relationship. The way the person kind of shines to the point you can’t even see them clearly,” I said, gesturing to the bright glow of the left side of the portrait’s face. “That kind of midland clarity of falling in love where you think you know the person’s faults but embrace them anyway. And then…”

“When the glow wears off,” Lola said, crouching down to look closer at the wince in Wendy’s gaze on the right side of her face, the cruel turn of her mouth, the almost wolf-like angle of her cheek.

“Normally, I am pretty self-forgiving of my wayward romances. Wendy was an especially great mistake on my part. I never learn not to rush.” I hadn’t waited to see what Wendy wanted from our connection, and when I realized...things had started to fracture quicker than I could reach to hold them together.

“Because you work for her,” Lola said.

“Because she wanted me to leave Rake. To leave my pack.”

Lola gasped and looked up at me, and I stepped back from her as she rose up. “But you’re bonded!”

“Yes,” I said. It had been an impossible ask, and something I might’ve seen coming if I’d been even the tiniest bit more cautious. I’d learned some care since then, at least.

Lola frowned and then glared down at Wendy’s portrait again. “She strikes me as someone that wants the world to prove to her how important she is, rather than deciding so for herself.”

My eyes widened, and I stared at Lola. “You’re a good judge of character then.”

Her face went pale and her eyes dropped to the floor. “No. I’m really not.”

She needs us. Lola needed us to prove to her that not all alphas were monsters, but also that some would recognize and cherish her value. And she needed time to prove to herself that her trust in us was well-placed. Maybe she related to Wendy’s fight for validation, but instead of injuring others, the only harm she’d done had been to herself.

“You’re so talented,” Lola murmured, glancing around the room again and then up to me, grey eyes direct. “But these are painful and moving.”

I grew warm at the compliment. My packmates had seen my work and encouraged me, but there was something about someone who had made no vow to support me that made the weight of the praise heavier.

“If I was going to show any of my work, it would be these,” I said, and then shrugged. “But I’d probably end up in a lawsuit if I tried.”

Lola’s lips twitched. “They’re not very flattering, no. I don’t think break-ups often are.”

I hummed my agreement and moved back to my seat to give Lola space. No, mostly it was to resist the urge to find an excuse to touch her. “I’m surprised you escaped Rake’s clutches for the night,” I said, and wondered if that was crossing a line.

Lola blushed but shrugged. “I needed a minute. Leo has him distracted until I get back. You know he’ll end up with you eventually.”

Rake wasn’t going to get much sleep until the heat broke this weekend. “He invited you to join us for the weekend,” I said, as if it was just a trip to the country, and not a heat with a pack.