Page 11 of Packed Up In Vegas

“I don’t want that. I don’t…”

Miles stroked a soft hand over my hair. “She’s already agreed to the show and it kills two birds with one stone. We owe her. Where else is she supposed to find heat partners this close to the start? You have to. You know she doesn’t get paid if you back out.”

“What?!” It came out as a muffled shriek through the respirator. “I don’t get paid if they back out? That’s not fair. Why is anyone backing out? What’s going on?”

Fucking hell. Could my day get any worse? I was broker than broke, stranded in Sin City, and about to go into heat.

“Please.”

The simple word had all four of them softening. I had played by all of their rules and they could ruin it for me anyway. Men were not very high on my list today. They always got so damn creative finding new and exciting ways to ruin my life. I supposed that blocking a payday wasn’t as bad as what my fiancé had done, but still.

Without their scents to distract me, I had only my own nerves and the serum coursing through my blood turning me into a basket case. I didn’t know what was going on, but the tension in the group was setting off an instinctual panic. The alphas were mad about something. Maybe they didn’t want me now that my scent had come in? Maybe they couldn’t bear to go through a heat with me?

“If you don’t want me…” I began.

“Don’t,” said Kai. “That’s not what this is about.”

“But no one’s telling me what it is about. What else am I supposed to think?”

Kai gathered me up and even though I couldn’t smell him anymore, the contact smoothed off the rough edge of my worries.

“Miles, this is fucked up,” said Amir. “What are we supposed to do?”

“I already told you. We have to do the show.”

“I am not letting those people see her,” Amir hissed.

“Why do you get to decide who sees me?” I snapped. “You’re not the one with an empty bank account. You’re not the one who got abandoned by your fucking fiancé in Las Vegas after he drunk-married someone else, or the one who has to face their goddamn family who told you not to date that asshole to begin with. You don’t get to make this choice for me. You can’t trigger my heat and then deny me everything I need to get my fucking life back on track.”

Amir’s growl sent a ripple of fear and desire through me, like my brain couldn’t make up its mind if he was growling at me, or at the injustices done to me.

“Let’s get through the show,” Miles said softly. “We can figure out everything afterward. Everyone will get paid and we won’t book anything new. Callie’s right that this is her choice and not yours.”

Amir looked so pissed that I shrank against Kai.

“If you give me a good reason, I’ll consider it,” I said. “But so far you’re all just being cryptic weirdos.”

Amir growled again. “We can’t go out there and fuck our mate in front of a goddamn audience.”

I stared at him, trying to process the words through the rapidly rising stew of heat hormones in my brain. Then it clicked. “Your what?!”

Mates. The alphas I was about to fuck for three days in front of a room full of people were my mates.

They were all looking at me. This was absolutely ridiculous. How was I supposed to cope with the fact that these guys were my mates and I had just been dumped by my fiancé? Now I was heading into a heat I couldn’t stop, and on contract to have sex in a room full of wealthy people with a bunch of alphas who seemed to want to back out at the last minute.

Too much.

My brain was not equipped to handle this level of fuckery.

Kai smoothed a hand down my back. “You don’t have to go out there.”

“I do if I want to get paid.”

Amir sat down hard next to Kai and me, draping himself lazily over the back of the couch. “Fine. Your choice, princess. I have no interest in showing off my mate to the world. Frankly I’m not even interested in having a mate, and while I don’t want to give up a payday, I won’t be dragging you out there if you don’t want to go.”

It wasn’t fair that Amir saying he didn’t want a mate was like a knife to the heart. I didn’t want a mate either so it made no sense that it would hurt if it was reciprocal.

I sucked in a deep breath, half-grateful their scents weren’t there to muddle things, and half-annoyed that I couldn’t drown in those fragrances. I didn’t have a choice but to go out there. The pay was so good and it was the only way I was ever going to recover from how hard Jerry had fucked me over. I had to.

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