Page 62 of Knot Your Baby

“Have you considered your omega might be searching for you, too?”

“She’s not.” His shoulders tense. “The first time I knew she was real wasn’t at Club Midnight, it was at a restaurant when I took over my father’s company. It was nine years ago.”

I nod slowly and wait for him to continue.

“The first time I met you at Club Midnight was years later, and I thought you were her. That’s when your perfume was the strongest.”

My heart skips. “What?”

“I admit it. Your scent reminded me of hers. I thought you were her. But you never looked the same. She had blonde hair and wore black-rimmed glasses. She was as tall as you, but she was curvier. You’re curvy now, but then you were thin and red-haired.”

I remember that time I met Thorne at Club Midnight. I wasn’t myself, in more ways than one. But it wasn’t my first time there or the first time I met him. The first time was just before my life spiraled downward, and I never went back for years.

I swallow. “I wasn’t healthy back then.”

He doesn’t listen. “And your scent wasn’t exactly the same the next time I talked to you, and with the doubts about your appearance became doubts about you.”

You kissed me. You wanted me.

I don’t say it. I say, “I started wearing perfume to enhance my scent. It was the only way to stand out in a club with too many scents.”

He grips the railing. “Then Maya came along. Her scent was...incredible.”Maya.The name hits me like a punch to the gut. “I thought she was the girl I first met. So much so, I hired her when Miller refused to accept that she was our pack omega, hoping he would come around. But he and Zane flat-out refused to accept her. Told me she’d duped me.” He sighs. “And she did. She started working for me, and her scent was different. I knew then that she was another fake, but I kept her around.”

I don’t want to hear what for.

“I’ve never faked my scent,” I breathe. “Just inhibitors and blockers sometimes.”

“Sure.” His tone drips with disbelief. “You just admitted to using perfume.”

“My perfume—my scent. I had it made to enhance my personal perfume, not to change it.”

“Yet now you’re on inhibitors. Why?”

“Because inhibitors mute one part of an omega’s scent. And as to why I take them is because I no longer care about alphas or packs. Now they can come and find me.”

“Like Zane.”

“He’ll do as you ask him in the end. You’ve just told me he refused to accept Maya. I’m sure this pack is stronger than my bond with Zane.” It breaks my heart to say it, but it’s true. He’s just proved it by telling me Miller and Zane wouldn’t accept Maya and he accepted it.

He chuckles. “And you? How do you feel about Zane?”

Our eyes lock as I say, “He could be my forever, but you’ll stop that.”

He turns and looks at the ocean and stays silent. Probably hating me for coming into his brother’s life.

I touch his arm lightly. “You’ll work it out. Whatever you’re fighting.”

As I turn to leave, his voice stops me. “Why haven’t you asked about our omega nest?”

I look back at him. “We’re surprisingly similar, Thorne. We both have trust issues. You don’t trust me, and I don’t trust myself around this pack. I can fight my omega instincts as much as you can fight your alpha.”

I walk away, leaving him to his ocean view.

When I reach Zane’s room, I find him sprawled on the bed, asleep. I check on Stone where he sleeps under the window before I slip under the sheets beside Zane.

His arm wraps around my waist, and he pulls me against him. I smile because his skin is against my skin. “Where have you been?”

“Talking to Thorne.”

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