Page 21 of Knotty New Year

“No. He said he wouldn’t take your choices from you. And then he gave you…” Rain fished around in my purse and pulled out the unopened envelope. “Open it.”

“I don’t want to. I’m sure it’s the ten thousand dollars. And if I take it, that’s… well, it’s not prostitution. But it wouldfeellike it. Like my true mate paid me off.”

“Fine, I’ll open it,” she said firmly, using a wickedly long purple nail to slice open the thick, creamy paper. It wasn’t a check inside. Well, there was a check, but there were other papers, too.She pulled out a letter and read silently, her dark eyebrows doing some crazy hopping dance.

“What?” I interrupted her facial spasms. “What does it say?” She shushed me and kept reading through the documents. Then she stared up at me, dumbfounded. Rain never looked like that.

“He got your spot back at Sycamore U. On a full ride scholarship, a new one he established for all omegas who present while they’re students there. There’s also a copy of a formal apology from the Board of Trustees and the University president, and an apartment contract for a three-bedroom apartment right next to campus, and—” I had the envelope and all the papers out of her hands in seconds.

“Holy shit, this is an offer for an internship… apaidinternship at Paxson Pharma. And if that goes well, I’ll be given a spot as a junior exec in charge of philanthropic outreach.” I read on while Rain squealed.

“Oh my gosh, it’s Pretty Woman minus the debasement! Hedoeswant to be around you.”

I let the paper fall, and the tears as well. “No. It stipulates I have to work on the other side of the country, or internationally. Not here. Not with him.”

Rain held me for a while again, then sighed. “I don’t get it. Why do all this for you if he didn’t feel something? Why go to all this trouble?”

“Guilt?” I muttered, but I was just as confused as her.

Just then, Mom called up the stairs, “Start getting ready, girls!” I lifted an eyebrow at Rain.

“It’s Christmas, right?” she reminded me.

I shivered. “Oh, shit. The party with Andreas.”

“You’re still afraid he’s going to ask you to marry him? You don’t have to now. You can go back to college, and work, and be who you wanted to be all along.”

“Can I?” I sighed and threw the papers on the floor. “Whynotmarry Andreas? At least I know what I’m getting into with him. And he wants me. He’s asked often enough. Maybe I should just plug my nose and say yes.”

“You can’t mean that,” she gasped as I dragged myself into the bathroom. “He has a giant booger in his nose at all times, Candy. At. All. Times.”

“Could be worse,” I called back. “I learned that the hard way this week.”

She went quiet for a while, and when I came back into the bedroom to get dressed, she had the little twitch she got in her eyelid that told me she was up to something.

“What are you planning?” I asked. She shrugged, pretending to mess with the makeup at my vanity. “You’re not going to cause a scene today, are you? It’ll hurt Mom’s feelings.”

“I would never,” she replied, applying some terribly pale eyeshadow too low on her lid.

I grabbed the applicator and did her makeup, then my own, and by the time we were both dressed—Rain in a dress and shoes I’d bought as her Christmas present, since she didn’t really have money for frivolous extras—we looked for all the world like two omega socialites who had everything they could ever want.

Andreas floated through the front door on a cloud of alpha pheromones that smelled like a combination of mildew and old tuna salad; it was worse than ever before. It almost made me want to vomit when he came in for a kiss, and I turned my cheek instead. Rain saw my panicked look and took his arm, drawing him away.

“Have you ever had allergies, Andreas?” she asked, wiping at her nose slightly. “I have seasonal ones. It makes my nose run…” She kept him occupied talking about his lifelong battle with cedar and oak pollens, as well as all sorts of molds and grasses, while I chatted with his parents, who I’d always liked. The socializing went on for hours before we sat down to eat, though Rain and my mom carried the conversational load for me.

Before I knew it, dessert was being served with tall flutes of champagne, and Andreas was rising, tapping on his flute with a dessert fork for attention. I wasn’t scared, or excited, or anything at all, when he dropped to one knee and opened a velvet ring box, asking me to marry him.

Rain had risen out of her chair and was shaking her head fiercely behind him, though only I was looking her way. “What a beautiful ring,” I murmured, taking the box from his hand and staring down at it. He was trembling with excitement, and his scent bloomed around us. I stared into his eyes, trying as hard as I could not to look at the tiny white speck in his vastly wide nostrils. “I’m so honored. It’s every omega’s dream to marry an alpha like you.”

My mom gasped.

My dad let out a soft curse.

And a voice I hadn’t thought I would ever hear again growled, “It’s not your dream, princess.”

Chapter10

Pax

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