Page 5 of My Begrudging Scent Matches

It will pass. The suppressants and her vibrator will hold out and she will be back to her average sweaty self in no time at all. These bouts are getting longer and more frequent, but they can’t last forever. This is what she tells herself at least.

Alice psychs herself up a moment longer before pushing away from the counter, pulling her shoulders back, and heading into the office.

Alice has already eaten a granola bar and plans to skip lunch in favor of staying at her desk and downing two more when Lily, her closest friend and the senior graphic designer on her team, stops by her desk looking like she’s going to explode with a secret.

“What happened?” Alice asks, her voice low.

“He’s here,” Lily says, as if Alice should know who she means. After a few more seconds of no reaction, Lily elaborates, “Caleb Everett.”

Alice can’t help but grimace at this news.

“Did you forget?”

“I tried to block out the idea of him coming to the office for as long as possible, so yes.”

Lily laughs too loud at this, but nobody bats an eye as a tenant of Lily’s personality is that she is always laughing too loud at things. Alice adores this about her. Lily is endearing and impossible to dislike, unlike Caleb fucking Everett, the bane of Alice’s existence since he started at the company three months ago.

“Why couldn’t he stay in Kansas?” Alice groans.

“Ohio.”

“Same thing, basically. Middle America.” Alice looks around, aware that she’d been so focused for hours that she hadn’t noticed the general buzz of everyone. Someone new, the sweetheart of the Quality Assurance and Compliance Department.

Caleb’s been working in his position for the last three months from Kansas—Ohio, whatever—until he could relocate closer to the Boston office. Everyone’s excitement about him joining in person is undue. At least in Alice’s opinion.

“They put him in the empty desk next to Scott,” Lily reports. Alice scrunches her nose but can’t help the way her head immediately turns in that direction. The desk is vacant, but she does see a new monitor on the tabletop next to one of the company water bottles. “I’m sure Logan will bring him by on his parade of introductions.”

“I hope not,” Alice grumbles, but when you speak of the Devil, he will appear, and sure enough, their boss rounds the corner with a tall, brown-haired man behind him. Alice recognizes him straight away from his email and LinkedIn photo; strong jaw, smooth hair, and teeth so nice they would scare a Victorian child. He’s taller than she thought, only because she’d let herself imagine he was a small, frail man with a big ego.

And, wait. Is Caleb Everett. . . hot?

Alice squints at Caleb trying to find ways in which he’s not aesthetically the ideal specimen of a man, only to look decidedly away when his eyes latch onto hers.

“Ah! There they are.” Logan snaps his fingers—the man is always snapping, he’s obsessed with snapping, it has to be his favorite thing. “Here, we have our illustrious Alice, and brilliant Lily.”

“I wanted to be the brilliant one,” Alice murmurs, and Lily’s elbow thuds into her arm.

“So good to meet you in person,” Lily shakes Caleb’s hand like she’s priming a pump. “Glad you finally came to your senses and moved to the city.”

“I imagine it wasn’t easy leaving all of those corn fields,” Alice says. The full weight of Caleb’s stare returns to her and Alice’s breath hitches at the force of his undivided attention. She notes that his eyes are darker brown than fresh coffee, and also that her hands are now damp.

“Pumpkins,” he corrects while offering his palm. Did his nostrils just flare? They did, Alice is certain. “My family grows pumpkins.”

She recognizes his voice from months of Zoom calls but it’s richer in person, solid. Alice wipes her palm on her pants as innocuously as she can manage with him staring at her all angry-bull-like, then brings her hand to meet his, only because everyone’s watching and it would be rude not to. As soon as her skin touches his, though, she recognizes something about him. It’s a primal recognition, one that makes her hair stand on end and neck flush.

He’s an Alpha.

His hand lingers a moment too long as his own expression shows him trying to piece together what she is. He shouldn’t be able to scent her, at least not with all of the scent blockers and deodorizers she’s on.

Ideally, he will conclude she’s a Beta with a suspicious biological pull toward him. Running into an Alpha in the workplace, rare as it may be, is exactly why she goes through the pain of hiding she's an Omega in the first place.

“A family of pumpkin farmers? Are you kidding? I love pumpkins!” Lily says. It breaks the moment between them and Alice pulls her hand away before letting it drop lifelessly at her side. Her skin tingles where it touched his.

“Definitely my favorite gourd,” Alice looks away from Caleb’s probing gaze. Anywhere else.

“Where’s Grant?” Lily asks. “You didn’t travel together?”

“We did,” Caleb clears his throat.

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