Page 41 of Curvy Nerdy Omega

Did that mean Francisco knew what she smelled like when almost no one else did? That thought infuriated me no matter how stupid it was. My instincts didn’t know who Francisco was to Lucy yet, so all I could feel was territorial and overprotective.

I hated this.

“Francesca. I didn’t expect to see you until Sunday.” The deep voice seemed pleasant enough, but there was an undertone that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Moving away from the roses, I turned to see an older man at a table with a pile of cut roses the same color as Frankie’s hair. He wore slacks and an undershirt with suspenders, looking relatively normal despite what he was.

The leather shoes he wore looked custom made. His hair was white at the sides, showing his age, but the rest was still pitch black. All of it was slicked back like he was some gothic, debonair gentleman.

But that wasn’t what had my attention.

Francisco had a knife in his hands that looked sharp enough to cut through bone despite how small it was. He used it to slice the thorns off the rose flawlessly and efficiently before carefully setting it in the smaller pile like each rose was precious to him.

“I needed to talk to you,” Frankie admitted. She slipped a knife from her belt and I realized it was identical to her father’s. She stood on the other side of the table and started helping, slicing the thorns off the rose stems just as efficiently as her father.

Keeping my hands in my pockets, I studied the greenhouse, making sure I was close enough to Frankie to grab her if I needed to. Lucy had asked me to come with her for a reason and I refused to let anything happen to her on my watch.

I couldn’t disappoint my omega.

“What could you possibly need to talk to me about with Valor’s dog at your heels?” Francisco sounded ticked, but not enough to make me worried. Not yet at least.

“He’s one of Lucy’s alphas.”

My shoulders tensed and I glared at her over my shoulder, pissed she hadn’t told me this was how she was going to start that conversation.

“Is he now?” Francisco studied me from head to toe as he sliced the thorns off another rose, not looking at what he was doing or his daughter. “And you’re sure about this?”

“I’m positive.”

Flicking my gaze back to Frankie, I couldn’t wipe the glower from my face even knowing it could make things worse, but at least I managed to keep my mouth shut.

There was no fucking way she could be positive. Lucy could find another legacy alpha who she found pleasing enough to ditch me and Liam. Until she asked for the bond, we weren’t her alphas, but she’d always be my omega.

I was pretty fucking sure there’d be no one else I’d ever want the way I wanted her. They’d all pale in comparison, and for the first time since I’d met him, I understood exactly why Liam had avoided omegas.

No one could ever compare to Lucy.

“I assume the other alpha is Liam Valor?” Francisco tsked like that irritated him, but he didn’t seem furious about it which was…weird.

“As if you don’t already know,” Frankie muttered, tossing one of the finished roses on the pile that was waiting for whatever the alpha of the Lopez pack planned to do with them. “He was the one who took care of her at Bite.”

“Strange,” Francisco murmured. He twirled one of the roses with the thorns still on it, watching the way the petals moved like the skirts of a dancer. “I was under the impression it was the dog who took care of that incident.”

I bit my tongue instead of responding to the taunt.

“Pop…” Frankie sighed and pulled the rose out of his hand. “Do you know what happened there or not?”

“Of course I know.” Her father scoffed and gathered the finished roses in his arms, turning to an empty table where there were a few vases and moss – whatever one might need for flower arranging. “You think I don’t keep track of my daughters even when they both chose to abandon me?”

“We didn’t abandon you,” Frankie snapped. She stomped around the table to follow after her father. It was kind of funny to watch someone glare at Francisco Lopez and get away with it, but it also made my stomach flip.

This wasn’t what I expected at all.

Lucy and Frankie were so secretive about their connections to this pack that I thought they’d parted on bad terms, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all.

“Oh, then what would you call it?” Francisco was acting like no one loved him and the little twinkle in his dark red eyes told me he was doing it just to mess with his daughter. It was so different from the man I’ve seen in various pack meetings that I nearly choked on air. “Both my daughters rid themselves of any connection to me.”

“Pop, stop being so dramatic and listen.” Frankie snatched the pruning shears off the table and went over to one of the darker rose bushes. She let out a massive sigh, just as dramatic as her father. “Arturo couldn’t keep his hands to himself when he caught wind of her true scent and tried to force himself on her. She gouged out one of his eyes before Liam got there.”

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