Page 29 of Scheme
Kit looked briefly startled, glancing around the room like he was flailing for some kind of lifeline. “I don’t want to leave things like this, Margot, with everything unresolved. I was bang out of order for what I said, and I thoroughly regret it—”
“I have to get back to work,” I reiterated, tipping my chin up stubbornly to hide the brief frisson of panic. At the end of the day, Kit was an alpha, and we were alone. It would be nothing for him to physically overpower me or even to manipulate me into compliance using his purr if he so desired. When it came to alpha and omega, the scales were always tipped in their favour.
“Okay,” he said quietly, seeing something in my expression and backing toward the door. “We can talk later. Whenever you want.”
“Sure,” I lied, having zero intention to ever speak to him again, deal be damned. “See you around, Kit.”
With an agonised look, he let himself out, and I listened to his footsteps retreat down the stairs, not releasing the breath I was holding until the front door lock clicked shut.
Then, and only then, did I let the full weight of thehurtsettle into place.
Here I’d been, thinking of Kit as some kind of victim in his friendship with his awful friends, but we were all the company we kept, and Kit was no exception. I’d been feelingsorryfor him.
Apparently, I wasn’t as immune to soulful eyes and broad shoulders as I thought I was.
Somewhere inside of me, that sad little omega whowantedstill existed, and I was going to make an extra effort to cauterise her now before I made the same mistake a third time.
Chapter 8
“Oh,youareadear,” Mrs Clarkson said gratefully, accepting the package of meat I’d picked up for her from the butcher. “Lawrence and I would be quite lost without you, you know? We’d have to move up north to my son’s town, and his girlfriend wouldn’t like that. She thinks I’m quite the interfering old biddy.”
I laughed at Mrs Clarkson’s mischievous wink. Since she was all but technology illiterate and never visited Manchester, where her son had moved for work, I couldn’t imagine how she’d be in any way interfering. She almost never spoke to her son.
“That alpha of yours was back today,” she added with a conspiratorial look, leaning against the door frame. “He and Lawrence had quite the chat out the front of the house. I invited him in for tea of course, but he insisted he couldn’t stay. Handsome one, that.”
My smile turned brittle. Kit had annoyingly been upholding his end of our agreement for the past three days, no matter how assiduously I ignored him. Did he expect me to upholdmyend of the deal after what he said? I had less than zero interest in going away with him and his awful friends after what he’d said to me.
“He’s not my alpha,” I corrected as politely as I could. “He’s just an alpha I know, doing a bit of scentmarking to discourage the riff-raff.”
“Come now, Margot, you can’t think me that wet around the ears! I’m an old woman, I know what a wooing male looks like.”
Mrs Clarkson had terrible cataracts, I doubt she was even certain whatIlooked like.
“He spoke very highly of you, you know, young Kit.”
“Did he now?” I deadpanned. That he’d managed to turn on the charm for Mrs Clarkson after being so insultingly rude to my face was salt in the wound.
“Oh yes. He had a lot to say about you, and your kindness in particular—that really stuck out to me since you are so lovely and helpful to your batty neighbours when you don’t have to be.”
“You’re not batty,” I laughed. “And you’re my friends. Of course if I can help out with anything, I’m more than happy to.”
Mrs Clarkson gave me a long look. “Says a lot about your character that, for all you try to downplay it. And it’s a credit to young Kit that he noticed it, I thought. Lawrence agrees and all, I’d pull him out here to tell you himself, but he’s nodded off in the chair in front of the telly. Anyway, I won’t keep you, I know you’re a busy wee thing with your important job. But I just wanted you to know that I like Kit, and I’d heartily approve if you decided to knock boots with such a fine alpha.”
I shook my head, laughing to myself as I hefted my own bag of shopping up the stairs. “Thank you. You know I value your opinion, Mrs Clarkson.”
“Always happy to screen any of your prospective bedmates!” she called after me. “Oh, Lawrence! You’ve woken up!”
I was still chuckling to myself by the time I got upstairs and put the shopping away. It was mostly bottles of electrolyte replacement drinks that I carefully stacked in the mini-fridge next to my nest.
Orgasming every few minutes for days really made a girl sweat.
Violet: Want to come over for a movie night? I’m making fancy nachos.
I groaned, staring down at my phone. Avoiding Kit meant avoiding Nico and Violet—at least for the next few weeks—and I was feeling a little starved for company.
Not starved enough to put myself through that, though.
Me: I think I’m going to have a quiet night in. Raincheck?
