Page 7 of Excess

Leo shook his head slightly, but he was in a good mood. This was his happy place. Nothing I said bothered him here. He saved all his ire for his opponents.

“There you are!” Ronnie yelled over the noise of the crowd. “Get over here, Leo!”

“Are you going to finally get back in the ring tonight?” Leo called over his shoulder.

I snorted, shaking my head. I hadn’t fought in years. The money wasn’t something to be sniffed at, and the radiator in Freya’s room needed to be replaced. But I’d rather earn my money the old-fashioned way, and not ruin my professional reputation by showing up to work with a bust-up face.

I couldn’t imagine what Inika Dara would think if I walked into her home looking the way Leo did after a fight. It would probably traumatise the little omega princess.

Leo disappeared into the crowd to talk to Ronnie, while I got myself a pint and found a good pillar to lean against.

A group of betas in tailored suits were clinking their glasses together nearby, laughing loudly. I wondered if they ran in the same circles as the Om-Guard heiress? No, surely not. Their suits looked nice, but not that nice.

Why the fuck was I thinking about her, anyway? I shook my head slightly, taking a sip of my beer. I didn’t usually think about my clients at all once I left work for the day.

It was just because she was an unmated omega, that was all.

A beautiful unmated omega.

But that was the reason she was in my head. It wasn’t as though I spent an abundance of time around unmated omegas. I never had. After finishing school, I’d immediately joined the army, and then I’d focused on building the business. By the time I’d even considered getting to know some omegas and settling down, Leo and Freya’s lives imploded, followed shortly by Dad’s, and everyone moved in with me.

An omega of my own wasn’t in the cards for me anymore. I couldn’t expect anyone else to put up with my fucked-up family, and bringing them into that situation would be cruel. Besides, Freya needed me. I didn’t want to split my focus by having kids of my own.

I exhaled heavily into my beer, my fingers tightening slightly around the glass. That’s what that weird feeling had been when I’d left Inika Dara’s house.

Sexual attraction.

How very fucking inconvenient.

Chapter 3

INIKA

“That was brutal,” Stasia whined, flopping forwards in the foyer of the Pilates studio post-workout to rub her thighs. “George is going to have to give me the longest massage tonight.”

The three of us mumbled some vaguely supportive words of agreement, even though we all knew Stasia paid a professional for massages. It was probably judgemental of me to even think it, but George and Stasia didn’t look like a couple who touched each other outside of heats. Frankly, none of my friends had touch-feely matings, but they were basically all but arranged, so I supposed that was to be expected.

Honestly, I didn’t think Stasia could stand George most of the time, but they were mated now and what was done was done.

“Are you going to do a class tomorrow?” Brigitte asked while Stasia and Ivy went to the bar to collect our kale and turmeric smoothies. “Miranda is in Guernsey for the week—some work thing. I figure I may as well do one each day. I haven’t got anything else going on.”

“I can’t tomorrow. My presence has been requested at an Om-Guard board meeting.”

Brigitte raised an eyebrow at me. “I thought you were some kind of…” She flicked her hand dismissively. “You know, employee or something. Since when do you attend board meetings?”

“This will be the first,” I admitted.

Brigitte was the most stoic of all of us—and it sometimes came across as aloof—but she was also the fiercest friend. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Your father finally recognises that you deserve a seat at the leadership table based entirely on your own merits instead of waiting for you to take a mate.”

I gave her a strained smile. “I’m not quite so optimistic. The board likely just wants an opportunity to tell me for themselves that I need to hurry up and pick a man. They probably know that Papa is too gentle to push the issue.”

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if my cousin, Avi, was in attendance too, being the next alpha of kin of my generation. No one had ever outright stated that he was the backup option, but they didn’t need to.

I’d insisted on going in at the ground floor and working my way up through Om-Guard, wanting to learn the ropes and add genuine value to the business. Avi had been appointed Marketing Director without a shred of experience in either marketing or directing. I pitied the team of betas who worked underneath him, tirelessly ignoring all of his stupid ideas while still making it seem like they were following his orders.

“There you ladies are,” Spencer said, bowing with a flourish as he entered the studio before politely kissing Ivy on the cheek. “Ivy, I thought I’d lost you. We need to get on the road, darling.”

She gave him a tight-lipped smile before handing me my smoothie, a look of far more genuine affection on her face. Spencer had always been a bit of a playboy, and Ivy was an assortment of insecurities hidden beneath the most beautiful exterior I’d ever seen. Ten years into their mating, and they seemed just as distant with each other now as they had been when they’d first emerged from her nest.

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