10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

INIKA

B y the time the weekend—and tapas with my friends plus Hugo—rolled around, my water bottle was in my hand at all times to counter the dehydrating effects of producing so much slick all week.

Blake had finished each work day in my spare bedroom, contorting me into positions I'd only fantasised about, and knotting me until I was bow-legged.

It made the prospect of tonight's dinner even less appealing. Usually when I was being set up with an alpha, I could at least comfort with myself with the idea that I'd get some decent—good, if I was lucky—sex out of it. But I didn't want to have sex with anyone who wasn't Blake, so that was out of the question.

Like I'd conjured him with my mind, my phone buzzed in my purse while I sat in the back of the car, Lúcás humming happily to himself as we headed for the restaurant.

Blake: Freya was asking after you today. Apparently tea and cake isn't as much of a treat when it's just me.

That was unexpected. While we'd been spending plenty of time together this week, there'd been no communication outside of when Blake was at my house.

Inika: I'm sure that's not true! How was the interpretative ballet class today?

Blake: More interpretive than ever.

I smiled at my phone like an idiot before silencing it and slipping it into my purse as Lúcás pulled up in front of the restaurant. Honestly, I wasn't sure how to reply to that anyway. Did he just want to chat? I was attached to him enough as it was without adding casual messages on top.

Would it be weird to ask if I could take Freya out sometime? Probably. She was just such a fun kid, and I hated the thought of her not having an omega to talk to. She was many years off the most challenging of the omega traits kicking in, but there were still little quirks that baby omegas had to deal with—especially how their environment looked and felt.

I couldn't imagine how difficult that would be with three full-grown alphas in the house. Her brain must be in management mode constantly.

"You're a little underdressed," Ivy said immediately as the hostess guided me into the private room at the back of the restaurant. My friend cast a critical eye over my cropped slacks and silk camisole, which—while on the less glamorous end of my regular dinner outfits—did show off a very alpha-friendly amount of décolletage.

With the agonising strappy stilettos, the drop earrings, and the low bun to highlight my neck, I thought I'd made a decent show of myself. It was a little less overtly sexy than what I'd normally wear to meet an alpha, but I wasn't in the mood to be sexy.

Not for Hugo, at least.

"Well, I'm sure if he likes me enough, he won't mind," I told Ivy, quickly greeting Stasia, who peeled her eyes away from her phone for a couple of seconds to give me an air kiss.

"Well, yes, of course. But… I don't know. You could have made more of an effort," Ivy hedged. "Hugo is a really great fit for you, Inika. Those don't come along very often."

"Oh, don't fuss, Ivy," Brigitte chided. "Inika looks lovely. Doesn't she, Miranda?"

Brigitte's mate nodded once, drumming her nails on the tabletop and looking bored. They'd met while they were at the same elite university, and ran in similar social circles before Brigitte had invited Miranda into her nest. The rest of us never spent much time with her—Miranda had some sort of high-flying finance job, and I suspected she found our social gatherings beyond tedious, though she politely never said.

She never said much of anything.

"Well, Hugo will be here any minute," Ivy continued, smoothing down her navy silk dress as she fretted. "Spencer is bringing him. He's just messaged and said they're around the corner."

"Lovely," I replied, accepting the glass of Amontillado that Stasia's mate, George, handed me.

"I ran into your parents, Inika," Stasia said, managing to hold a conversation while still tapping away on her phone. "Did they say? They had no idea about Hugo! Imagine. You must have been busy if you hadn't had a chance to mention him."

"Yes, well, they're certainly all up to date now." I gave her a tight smile that she didn't see, taking a sip of my sherry. I wanted to go home. My make-up was making my skin itch, and my heels hurt, and every time my earrings brushed against my neck I wanted to rip them out and hurl them across the room.

Part of it was pre-heat symptoms. A larger part of it was my personality.

"They're here! They're here!" Ivy whisper-shouted. "Sit down, Inika. Look natural. No, not there— Around the other side, there's an empty seat there for Hugo too."

"Very subtle," I murmured, moving around the table and taking my allocated seat. Not only would I have Hugo on my left, but Miranda had been assigned the seat to my right. There was no way Ivy hadn't planned that. Even if Hugo was miserable conversation, I'd be forced to speak to him because the alternative was Miranda, who barely said a word.

"You probably should have eased up on the Om-Guard tonight," George volunteered helpfully from across the table. "Let the bloke have a good whiff of unmated omega. That's the best way to nab an alpha."

"George!" Stasia hissed, her face flaming red. "Can you be civilised for once, please?"

He shrugged disinterestedly, taking a long swig of his beer. George was from a new-money family, and had bailed out Stasia's family business—their mating seemed to have been thrown in to sweeten the deal. Of all the couples here, I suspected Stasia and George liked each other the least. There was no missing it in person, though Stasia was always effusive in her praises of him on social media and when he wasn't around.

I pasted a polite smile on my face as a laughing Spencer walked in, clapping the man who could only be Hugo on the back.

He was pretty, I'd give him that. Tall and lean, with brown curly hair that flopped endearingly over one eye, and a warm, friendly smile.

Kind , I decided. He looked like a kind alpha. And more personable than Spencer, who wasn't a bad person, but struggled to make conversation with anyone who wasn't like him. I searched my brain, trying to think if I'd ever met Hugo before, but if we had, the interaction hadn't stood out.

"Everyone, this is Hugo," Spencer announced, gesturing unnecessarily at his friend. "Hugo, this is everyone. I'm sure you've met some of them before, but I'll go around the room, just in case."

That made the first introduction significantly less awkward, though the true test came when Hugo rounded the table to take his seat next to me.

Brigitte kindly started a debate with Stasia about nail technicians, which pulled at least some of the focus away from Hugo and I. The two of them could be loud when they wanted to be, and Ivy couldn't resist being drawn in on that particular topic.

"Hello again," Hugo said, getting comfortable and shooting me a charming smile that probably had alphas, omegas, and betas alike swooning in his presence. "I hear these are the designated seats for singles."

"So it appears," I agreed with a laugh. "Though it's hard to be entirely sure. Everyone is being so subtle about it."

"Aren't they just?" Hugo smiled, pouring himself a glass of water from the jug at the centre of the table. He leaned in, dropping his voice low so he wouldn't be overheard. "I hate to bring this up because I don't want to make dinner awkward, but I'm not interested in any kind of relationship right now. I'm tragically hung up on an ex who thinks she knows what I need better than I know myself, and it would be desperately unfair to inflict my current emotional state on anyone."

I gave him a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry to hear it. And thank you for being honest with me. I'm a little hung up on someone myself at the moment, but Ivy and Spencer got the idea in their head…"

Hugo flicked a hand dismissively. "No further explanation required. Spencer has always been like a dog with a bone when he gets an idea in his head. I did try to tell him that tonight wasn't the best idea, but he insisted that there was no harm in a casual dinner. And look—perhaps he's right. We can be friends, can't we?"

I smiled into my glass. "Of course."

As far as company went, Hugo could have definitely been worse.

"Are you pining over an ex too?" he asked, still keeping his voice quiet so the others wouldn't bother us.

I shook my head. "A friends-with-benefits arrangement." I paused for a second, taking another sip of my sherry. "Actually, I'm not sure we're close enough to be friends."

Hugo laughed, which had the unfortunate side effect of making Ivy look almost giddy with excitement. Spencer leaned back in his seat, smug and satisfied, probably planning out future holidays that the four of us could take together.

Stasia, Ivy, Brigitte, and I had gone to school together and managed to keep in touch, though it felt like we had less in common with each year that passed. Spencer had been the first mate to join our little circle—their parents were business partners of some kind and had pushed the two of them together at Ivy's first heat. He'd tried and failed for years to convince one of us to take one of his friends as a mate.

"A benefits arrangement then," Hugo mused. "Have you considered trying to befriend them?"

"My thoughts aren't usually that wholesome in his presence."

Hugo laughed again, and I felt slightly bad about it. My friends were probably going to leave here brainstorming what Hugo and I would name our future children just because I happened to be delightful company.

"How are you enjoying being back in London?" I asked, shooting the servers a quick smile of gratitude as they started setting out dishes along the centre of the table.

"Well," Hugo began, grabbing the patatas bravas and holding out the dish for me to take some first. "As I said, I'm still hung up on my ex—who is back in Copenhagen—so that's marred the experience of coming home somewhat. Work wanted me to back in the London office, and my family wanted me back to, you know, take on more responsibility and such."

I nodded, understanding that perfectly.

"Did she not want to leave Copenhagen?"

"I'd have never left if that was the reason. No, we had been planning on moving together, but Kirstine pulled out at the last minute. She's a beta, and has bought into the family rhetoric that she's somehow not good enough for me because of it."

"Was she aware of said family rhetoric? That's a lot of pressure to stand up to."

Hugo winced. "Yes. I thought I'd shielded her from it, but… well, they found a way. I haven't given up, though. One day I'll be the Marquess of Hastings, and then I can do whatever I want."

"Playing the long game? I'll toast to that," I said, lifting my glass. He clinked his against mine and Ivy all but swooned on the other side of the table.

"The long game indeed." He sighed wistfully. "But not too long, or Kirstine will move on and I'll lose my mind. What about Mr All-Benefits-No-Friends? Are you playing the long game there?"

Was I ?

I gave the idea some serious consideration while helping myself to some croquetas. Was I—even subconsciously—hoping that something was going to develop between Blake and I out of our current arrangement?

"No, I don't think so," I said eventually. "Aside from the fact that he doesn't want a mate—and I can't argue with that, so this is moot anyway—everyone expects me to pick a particular type of mate. From a particular type of family."

"A future marquess, perhaps?" Hugo teased.

"It is rather rude of you to exist, be perfect by everyone else's rules on paper, not already be mated, and for neither of us to be interested in the other."

Hugo laughed so loudly that everyone gave up giving us the illusion of privacy, demanding to be let in on the joke. Fortunately, he adeptly redirected them in a firm yet charming way that no people-pleasing omega could have ever pulled off.

Spencer brought up some hideous story from their boarding school days that was probably meant to be charming but would have almost certainly landed anyone from a less affluent family in prison, and I leaned back in my seat, content to just observe.

Mating an alpha like Hugo would cement this life for me. This future. I suspected that the others—or at least Stasia and Ivy— met up a lot without me, because I was the awkward one who didn't have a partner to balance out numbers. My social life would probably flourish if I took The Right Kind of Mate.

But if this was what flourishing looked like, I was fine withering.

I liked my friends, but we had increasingly less in common. The food was delicious, but the private dining room felt a little suffocating. The ankle straps of my heels felt like they were getting tighter with every second that passed.

Maybe I was just getting old. I wanted to go home to my cosy nest, and my silk pillowcases, and my industrial strength retinol.

If tonight had solidified one thing for me, it was that this wasn't how I wanted to spend my future Saturday nights. I'd already come to terms with giving up Om-Guard, but this was a brand new challenge to face.