Page 4 of Excess

“Let him in.”

My dislike for this wealthy pest of an omega who’d been hounding me continued to foment as the beta opened the study door, gesturing for me to enter. At what level of wealth did people stop opening their own doors? Did she even know how door handles worked or was that a poor person life skill?

“Mr Alwis. A pleasure to finally meet you.”

I grunted in acknowledgement, sizing up the room as I stood in the doorway of the circular office. The curved bookshelves alone that lined the walls would have probably taken a significant chunk off my mortgage, and the black marble and oak desk in the centre of the room was clearly a custom piece, curved to fit the exact contours of the room. It suited the space, but I wasn’t sure it suited the omega standing behind it.

Inika Dara was sleek and polished and expensive, to be sure. But she wasn’t cold like I’d expected her to be. After just a few seconds of looking at her, it was clear that everything about her radiated warmth beneath that elegant, poised exterior.

Odd.

And, of course, she was fucking beautiful. Just my luck. Inika Dara had deep brown skin; thick wavy black hair, pulled into a low ponytail, and the darkest eyes I’d ever seen, framed by impossibly long eyelashes. Everything about her—from the high cheekbones to the plush lips, and her graceful neck screamed elegance.

Was she just born looking like that? Or was that a by-product of unimaginable wealth, too?

I hazarded a guess that Inika Dara was unmated too, though her lack of scent made it difficult to tell. She’d obviously slathered herself in scentshield lotion, which I grudgingly appreciated.

The silence had dragged on, but Ms Dara didn’t seem to be in a rush to break it. She raised an eyebrow as she sized me up right back, probably unimpressed by me wearing jeans and a thick, well-worn sweater to meet a client. In stark contrast, she was dressed head-to-toe in black office wear—a high-necked tight sweater and fitted slacks.

Wasn’t she an unemployed heiress? Perhaps I needed to revise my ideas about what unemployed heiresses looked like.

“Would you like to sit down, Mr Alwis?” Ms Dara asked, gesturing at the seat in front of the desk. “Or you could continue to loom in the doorway, if that’s more comfortable.”

I snorted, taken aback at her boldness. Then again, she’d probably gone through life saying whatever she wanted without consequences.

“Alternatively, we could move to the courtyard if you’re concerned about my scent?” Ms Dara suggested.

I shook my head, trudging over to the desk and taking a seat as she delicately sat down in hers.

“I can’t smell you,” I muttered, slightly shocked that she’d raised the topic so easily. It wasn’t the kind of thing well-bred omegas discussed, from my vague recollections of the public school my brother and I had been forced to attend.

“Excellent. Well, let’s get to it, shall we? As you’re probably aware from mine and my assistant’s many emails…” She paused, giving me a long look. I supposed that this was probably the part where I should apologise for making her chase me down, but I wasn’t so inclined. I didn’t want to work for rich fucks who didn’t appreciate the character of these old buildings anyway.

Her eyes almost seemed to flash with amusement for a moment, but then it was gone and she resumed speaking. “I’m looking to recreate a specific piece of plasterwork over a staircase and landing that was walled off for many years. Unfortunately, it’s been long since removed, but I have the original plans for the house—well, the stables, as they were—and I’ve heard you’re the very best at these kinds of projects. I’m told you use traditional materials like cow hair where needed to match original work, is that true?”

“It is,” I replied gruffly, reluctantly impressed that she’d done her research, and was hiring based on more than the fact that I was busy and had inadvertently cultivated an air of exclusivity that seemed to appeal to the wealthy.

“Does it feel like you’re part of a long-standing tradition, keeping those traditional methods alive?” she asked, tilting her head to the side as though she genuinely wanted to hear the answer to that question.

“I guess,” I admitted gruffly. Nothing about this interaction was going the way I’d envisioned it.

She gave me a long look, the corners of her mouth twitching before she opened a drawer, pulling out a manila folder and sliding it across to me. “I made a copy of the plans for you to take a look at—you can keep those. Shall we go upstairs to see the space?”

I grunted in agreement, eyeing her slightly warily as we both stood. On reflection, it was weird that we’d had this meeting with no one else in the room, let alone going upstairs with her to where I presumed the more personal areas of the house were.

Sure, regular omegas went about their lives and got things done without a bodyguard following them everywhere, but I fully expected Inika Dara to have one. An entire squad, in fact.

Though, perhaps, what I actually expected her to have was a mate. How had an omega as coveted as the Om-Guard heiress not been mated off during her first heat?

We made our way out of her office, past a mostly glass wall that looked into a central courtyard, heading up a flight of stairs.

Honestly, all the money in the world couldn’t buy good taste.

Converting an 1800s stables into a grand home would have undoubtedly required a lot of work, but it was unfortunate that whoever had done it hadn’t left a trace of its original character on the inside. The walls were covered in tastefully expensive off-white luxury wallpaper, the many fireplaces I could see through open doors were stainless-steel edged gas inserts halfway up the walls, and the entire place was done up in shades of cream, beige, and brown.

It was a fucking travesty.

There wasn’t a trace of raw brick or aged timber as Ms Dara led me upstairs. No reclaimed doors. Even the beautiful wooden window frames had been covered in a smooth layer of inoffensive eggshell paint.

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