Page 18 of Knot Here for You

“Here’s this month’s payment.” He hands me the envelope. “I swear I’m going to figure out that damn payment portal one of these days.”

I laugh and wave a hand. “No worries. I think you secretly like having a reason to text.”

He grins, his cheeks flushing as he looks down and runs a hand through his dark hair. “Yeah, I might. Listen, Sylvie-”

Oh, no. Please don’t let him ask me on a date. I hold my breath, waiting for the question and the inevitable rejection I’ll have to give him.

“Whit!” a voice calls from the back, and my eyes flick toward the sound. Whitman tenses and glares over his shoulder.

“Busy!”

“Now, man,” a harried looking beta burst through the curtain. “I-I think I might have fucked up-”

“Jesus, Clark. Really? Don’t just announce that.” Whit slides his gaze to me and sighs. “Would you mind waiting? I’ll only be a minute.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, backing up a step. “Just don’t go anywhere, okay?”

He ducks behind the black curtain, and I only hesitate for a second before bolting. I have a brief flash of guilt—he is my client after all—but I’d much rather text him later and tell him something came up than have to reject him.

My head is down, stuffing the envelope with my payment into my bag as I hurry through the door.

It’s my fault really, what happens next, because if I was paying just a little more attention I would have seen him, I would have stayed in the store and waited until he passed, but my mind is full escaping Whitman and simultaneously making a list of all the things I need to do while in town—pick up more suppressants and scent canceling soap from IndulgScents, hit up Costco for supplies I can’t get in Kilrose Lake, go to the bookstore for a new stack of the smuttiest novels I can find—so as I step out of the store, I run into a wall and bounce back, a small pained gasp leaving me.

I mumble out an apology, keeping my head down like I always do, and go to step around the army green plaid clad chest with a gray tie down the middle, but draw up short when hands curl around my shoulders, holding me still.

“Vee?”

No.

Oh no.

There’s no way.

No way he’s standing here right in front of me. But in the next instant, I get a whiff of his scent. Strong coffee, sweet and creamy, with a hint of whiskey. Like the best Irish Cream. Even after eight years, I recognize that scent. Recognize the way it makes my heart thunder in my chest and my knees weak and my pussy clench.

My omega gives a happy whimper that I swallow down while she’s busy doing a little dance and begging me to drop to my knees in front of our alpha to present to him, while bearing my throat for his bite.. I bitch slap that instinct down and point a finger at my omega with a very solid no.

When she’s calmed enough for me to think, I mentally kick myself. I ran from one mildly uncomfortable situation, only to land myself in one that is going to be infinitely more painful. Should have just stuck around and let Whitman ask me out. Fuck.

Thankfully, I’ve planned for this. I’ve rehearsed this in my head over and over in the middle of the night after I’ve woken up from nightmares with tears on my face. The scenarios usually fall into three categories. One: I release all my pent-up emotions on them in a torrent, shocking them with my voracity and leaving them dumbfounded and clutching their balls because in this scenario, I’ve kicked them in their dicks. Two: I run them over with my car without talking to them at all. And three: I pretend like they don’t exist and I am not who they think I am.

Never in any of my imaginings do I sit down and have a rational conversation with them, where they tell me how happy they are with their omega, and I tell them I’m lonely and miserable and can’t date anyone, because my omega only wants them. The picky bitch.

It’s not a surprise to me that when faced with the reality of running into one of the boys that broke my heart, I go with option three. I hate all kinds of confrontation, and confronting an alpha that my omega knows should be hers is impossible. It’s my nature to try to please them, to make them happy, to soothe any of the hurt or ruffled feathers they may have. In the fight, flight, freeze or fawn question, my first instinct is almost always fawn when it comes to them.

It’s fucking ridiculous. And I hate it.

They left me. They broke me. Why the hell should I forgive them?

“Vee?” He says again, hand sliding from my shoulder up to my neck, like he’s going to tip my chin up, force me to meet his eyes. I hear him take a deep inhale, trying to scent me. Good luck with that, buddy. I’m doused in enough de-scenter for twelve people. “Sylvie. Shit. It is you, isn’t it?”

I shake my head and try to step away from him, but he tightens his grip. “No, sorry,” I mutter, lowering my voice an octave and still not looking at him.

I know I’ve changed a lot in the last six years. My hair is lighter and ombre, darker at the roots and almost platinum at the tips. I have a nose ring. My skin is paler since I don’t spend any time outside any more and my body is definitely not the awkward teenage one I had when I was seventeen and chasing after the man in front of me and his pack mates. I’m thinner than I was, but in weird places. The omega in me makes my hips wider and my tits fuller, but being away from them has removed most of the softness on my form everywhere else. It makes me look weirdly unbalanced. A stick figure drawing with out of proportion boobs.

Beyond that, I’ve grown up. I’m a freaking adult now, paying bills and everything. I carry myself differently. There is very little of my seventeen self left in the woman I am now. He and his pack mates made sure of that.

“Vee, come on.”

I shake my head again. “Not who you think I am.”

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