Page 8 of Excess

“How was class?” Spencer asked, surveying the group.

“Agony,” Stasia replied dramatically, half paying attention to us, half focused on her phone. “Where are you two off to?”

“The lodge for the week,” he replied, referring to his parents’ hunting lodge in Somerset. “We’re getting all the cousins together while they’re off school, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, are the boys in the car?” I asked, perking up. Their three sons were rambunctious—but delightful—little monsters, and we rarely got to see them.

“Oh no. The nanny has already taken them down,” Ivy replied with a light laugh. “Frankly, I wouldn’t survive a car ride with all three.”

“How are you finding this nanny?” Stasia asked, setting Ivy off on a long tangent about her struggle to find anyone she liked, while Brigitte and I—both child-free—sipped our smoothies in silence.

“Inika!” Spencer said suddenly, slapping his thigh and making me startle. “I meant to tell you, Hugo is moving back from Copenhagen. His company has transferred him back to the London office. Should be here by the end of the month, if I recall correctly. You remember Hugo, right? He’s an old school friend of mine.”

I shook my head, having only the vaguest recollections of Spencer’s boarding school friends from when he and Ivy first met.

“He’s an Operations Director for some multinational—I forget the details, but it sounds very impressive, no? Excellent family too. Titled. His father is the Marquess of Hastings, and Hugo is the heir apparent.”

“I see.”

It was a good thing I’d practically bathed in Om-Guard after my workout. The others wouldn’t smell the stress pheromones coming off me, at least.

Why did I even react this way? On paper, Hugo sounded like exactly the kind of alpha I should be entertaining. Of course, I hadn’t liked any of those alphas in the past, but there was always the possibility that this one was both a decent human being, interesting enough to hold a conversation, and capable of fucking me properly.

None of them had been in the past, but maybe.

A brief image of Blake Alwis, the grumpy alpha plasterer, popped into my head unbidden, and I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. I’d had to shower, masturbate, then shower again after he’d left.

He had an abysmal personality, but I’d bet my entire fortune that Blake Alwis could fuck.

He was gorgeous too. Deep brown skin. Short black hair. Thick beard. Broad shoulders that looked like they’d make an excellent seat. He really ticked all of the boxes.

It was incredibly inappropriate for me to think of him that way, of course. But they were just harmless thoughts, right? He never had to know.

“Hugo was messing around with some Danish beta for years,” Spencer continued, rudely yanking my wandering thoughts back into the present. “It’s been a real source of stress for his family that he didn’t have an omega. A proper mate, you know? Anyway, that’s all done now. You two would get along swimmingly, don’t you think, Ivy?”

Ivy nodded enthusiastically, giving me a wide-eyed look. Sometimes I wondered if she really wanted me to find an alpha to fall in love with or if it was more of a misery-loves-company situation. “Oh yes. Hugo is lovely. Your parents would adore him.”

“A ringing endorsement,” Brigitte murmured, though I knew deep down she’d also like to see me mated off, though I suspected for different reasons than the others. For someone who was so open-minded in other areas, Brigitte had a deep dislike for the very concept of Prendre and agencies like it, and hated that I used them for my heats. Until she’d been mated, she suffered through them alone, seeing it as a trial that all unmated omegas had to go through.

Unfortunately for her, I’d never found much glory in needless suffering.

“Why don’t you set up something where they can meet?” Stasia suggested excitedly. “Oh, we haven’t been for tapas in forever. Doesn’t that sound wonderful, Inika? A titled, single alpha—at our age!”

I hummed in agreement without much enthusiasm. There was no use pointing out that I’d likely met him before, and there had clearly been no sparks then. For all their supportive words about how I shouldn’t settle, I knew my friends all felt that at thirty-four the pickings were slim and I should just take what I could get.

If finding someone was all I cared about, I could have been mated a thousand times over by now. Alphas were not a scarcity. Alphas were in abundance.

I wanted love.

I wanted to fall in love with someone that I actually enjoyed spending time with. I wanted them to fuck me like they hated me, then hold me like they adored me.

Was that really too much to ask?

“Tapas sounds great. Let’s make it happen when we’re back from the lodge,” Spencer said with a self-satisfied grin. I wondered if Hugo knew he was being set up—the poor bloke was probably still pining after the Danish beta, and his friends were already trying to pair him off on this side of the Channel. “We should probably get going, Ivy.”

We all headed for the front doors and said our goodbyes, and I promised to meet Brigitte for a class later in the week as Lúcás pulled up to the curb to collect me.

“Where to today, Miss?” Lúcás asked, grinning at me cheerfully in the rearview mirror.

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