Page 62 of Scheme
“So Kit can find you,” she explained, guiding me to the bed before doubling back to close the door behind her. I doubted he was going to rush around looking for me, but I couldn’t quite formulate a reply yet, not while the adrenaline was still working its way out of my system.
Violet paced, alternating between giving me pitying looks and glaring at the door, never one to hide how she was feeling.
“I don’t like these people,” she muttered, pulling out her phone, her nails tapping frantically against the screen. “I never have. They’re rude as fuck, and I’m glad Nico doesn’t really bother with them any more. Some friendships deserve to be left at school.”
“Agreed,” I murmured, my voice shaky. There was something deeply disheartening about knowing these were the kinds of people Kit chose to spend time with. They were a reflection of him, specifically the worst parts of him. The alpha who’d stood in my kitchen and spitballed the idea that I had conspired to trick him into mating me before I’d even met him.
I liked to think he’d learned something from that moment, but this was the healthy reminder I needed that these were the kinds of people Kit surrounded himself with. That those ideas didn’t exist in a vacuum, and he’d only addressed the uncomfortablewrongnessof his words when he’d been confronted with the outcome of them directly.
All good things to keep in mind to counter all the things about him Ididlike. Like his dimples, his wry sense of humour, his talent and ambition, how cute he looked in his glasses, and how he fucked me like an alpha possessed.
“I can’t think of any reason why he’d be interested in you otherwise.”
Having a mate wasn’t on the cards for me anyway, but it wouldn’t be Kit even if it was. I was just temporarily useful to him.
“We’re not spending the weekend with these people,” Violet continued, still busy on her phone. Possibly telling Nico to hurry up and join us. “You are very selfless, Margot. You constantly put others before yourself—which I worry is a side effect of your parents constantly sidelining you for your siblings, but I digress—I’m stepping in today. No Selfless Margot allowed. Kit was wrong to ask you to come here. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he in no way deserves and say that he probably didn’t realise how poorly they’d treat you.”
“I don’t know. They were pretty rude the first time I met them,” I replied absently, smoothing my hands over my shorts to dry my palms.
“Well, that’s true. But Kit announced his intentions when he told Coleman you were going into heat and he wouldn’t leave you alone.”
“That wasn’t real,” I cut in, my voice a little sharper than I intended it to be. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I shouldn’t be letting this get to me—”
“You should absolutely be letting this get to you,” Violet interrupted. “You are so hard on yourself, Margot. You don’t have to be perfectly calm and gracious all the time, you know. No one will think any less of you if you occasionally lose your cool.”
I didn’t think that was strictly true, though I had lost my temper with Kit when he’d accused me of being a conniving omega, and I had to admit that there was something very freeing about it.
“I’m not going to fight to stay here or anything,” I said eventually, letting out a heavy sigh. “I’m not quite that self-sacrificing. Are you looking up train times?”
Violet opened her mouth to answer, but the sound of the front door opening downstairs had us both falling silent.
Kit was back.
Chapter 15
“What’sgoingon?”Kitasked, voice laced with suspicion. “Where’s Margot?”
Violet led me toward the landing, both of us pausing at the top of the stairs to listen.
“She’s upstairs with Violet,” Nico replied, not sounding much calmer than he’d been outside. “Maybe you should ask Coleman what’s going on. Better yet, ask him outright what he thinks of Margot. Maybe even what he thinks ofyou, since apparently they all feel like you need group consensus to make decisions.”
“What?”
Nico didn’t bother elaborating, heavy footsteps already coming up the stairs. He raised an eyebrow at us, seeing Violet and I half hanging over the bannister, but didn’t say anything.
“Coleman!” Kit called, heading through to the kitchen, his voice fading as he went. “What’s going on? Has something happened?”
“Pack,” Nico said succinctly. “If we stay here any longer, I’m at risk of getting myself arrested.”
“We never unpacked,” Violet said cheerfully, all but skipping back down the hall to get her things, Nico hot on her heels.
I found myself drifting down the stairs, drawn in by the increasingly loud voices coming from outside.
Don’t do it. You’re not going to like what you hear, I told myself. Kit wasn’t going to throw away his friendships over a fake relationship. It was much more likely that this was the moment he came clean, and I actually didn’t need to be here to experience that humiliation in person.
And still, I took a step to the right, toward the kitchen.
“You don’t know what you’re doing—” I heard Coleman say, but his words were cut off by a thump and a sharp spike in alpha aggression that coated the air so thoroughly that I could feel it from here.
