“Sandy is on the warpath,” Lisa said, later that morning, as I filled my cup with coffee on my morning break.
“Why?” I asked, pulling out a chair at the table. This was our usual time to meet before the room became overcrowded with the rest of the office staff.
“It’s something to do with the new ownership,” Lisa said.
“Rumour is, she dated the owner,” Guy said. “Maybe it’s the one that doesn’t come to the office.”
“Or all of them, they are obviously a pack,” Kelly said as her lips curled up into a knowing smile.
“Oh,” I said. It made sense when I thought of how she acted the day of the presentations. The way she responded to them and I didn’t know if it was all the bosses, but I wasn’t getting involved in a rumour. This place was terrible for gossip. Not that I normally complained. I enjoyed listening to it, but never wanted to be the subject of it.
“So why is she on the warpath?” I asked.
“Because she was looking for you and saw you in their office. No disrespect, but you’re only an executive. She is a director.” Guy arched an eyebrow.
“Fuck my life,” I mumbled. The words were cutting, but correct. I picked my travel cup from the table, shrugged my shoulder. “As long as she aims her anger at them and not at me.”
Lisa and Guy exchanged a brief look before Guy shrugged and answered me. “They’re all alphas, Tilly. I’m sure the annoyance is between the former lovers,” he said, rubbing his hand over mine as I rose. “Don’t concern yourself with it. Let them battle it out.”
Lovers?
I hurried back to my desk and put my head down, hoping I could spend the next part of the day deeply immersed in my work and not get involved in office politics.
I kept my head low and fingers busy for the rest of the morning, updating the intranet site with the details Luca had asked me to and then reread the blurb sitting on the website of the new business owners and noticed they all had the same surname—Hanson.
I tapped my fingers over the desk as I hummed at that. Luca looked Mediterranean with his olive-coloured skin, like he could be Italian or Spanish. Jackson was much fairer in skin colour and blue eye colour, and Cruz had dark hair and those stunning silver grey eyes. Each of them looked different to the others, each acted different. Though I had a different colour hair to my sister Georgie, we at least shared the same colour and shape of our eyes, we also looked similar, everyone could tell we were sisters.
I googled Jeremy Hanson, my old boss and I assumed was the father of one of them. A page popped on the screen all about him and a family picture of the happy family, taken at a wedding around ten years ago.
Jeremy, Brent and Adam Hanson, their wife Ursula and sons Cruz and Saint.
I gasped as I stared at the screen.
Cruz... and Saint.
Was it the same Saint who was Georgie’s boyfriend?
Tapping my fingers over the desk, I didn’t know if the development was something I needed to deal with at home and not at work.
Nothing came up when I searched for Luca Hanson. It didn’t surprise me. I repeated my search, but this time for Jackson. Again, there was nothing to tell me much about him. It didn’t escape me the partners’ details before five years ago were sketchy.
My mind whirled with endless possibilities, and I needed to calm myself and my thoughts. So, I got on with updating the website with Luca’s details. Aged twenty-eight, as was Jackson, but Cruz was a year younger.
After proofreading Luca’s description, I cast my eye over Jackson’s photograph, remembering the night.
Jackson, why couldn’t you be a beta? I thought about that many times. He could’ve been perfect for me.
Then my gaze went to the photo of Cruz. The man was beautiful, fair-haired and more angelic looking than the other two, his face less masculine than Jackson’s square jaw and angled look, and Luca’s model good looks, but I knew underneath that angelic face was a devil trying to hide in plain sight.
My desk phone rang. I closed my eyes at seeing the caller’s name.
Jackson.
As I wondered about him and knew he and his pack were the reason that I barely slept a wink last night, spending most of the night tossing and turning, trying to work out if my three new bosses had something to do with my father’s death and my mother and sister disappearing from the face of the planet.
And now, somehow—Saint could be involved.
Coincidence?
And I tried to come up with plenty of excuses. Not one of them answered why they were suddenly around me. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
Did they know I was an omega?
Were they all there that night?
I squeezed my eyes shut and dropped my head on my desk.
Did I have the strength to do what I claimed I would do?
Find the people who changed my life, and do whatever I had to in order to get my answers.