Chapter 5

Margot POV

The lab went completely quiet the second I walked back through the door.

Every head turned. Keyboards stopped clicking.

Someone froze with a pipette halfway to a sample tray.

I gave them the same mild, unbothered smile I used when expensive equipment threw error codes.

“Nothing interesting happened. Get back to work before the data gets cold.”

Seniority had its uses.

 No one pressed for details.

Nora was a different story entirely.

She rolled her chair across the aisle the moment I sat down and dropped her voice to a fierce whisper.

“Talk. Right now. You look like someone hit you with a truck made of pure stress.”

“I signed a comprehensive NDA.” My words tasted bitter.

“That’s literally all I can say.”

Her eyes went wide behind her glasses.

“You’re actually kidding me.”

“I wish I were.” I rubbed the bridge of my nose hard enough to see small sparks.

My gland still felt warm under the suppressant patch, sensitive in a way that made me want to snarl at my biology.

“It’s… not bad news. That’s the only part I’m allowed to tell you.”

She studied my face for a long, searching second, then nodded slowly.

“Okay. As long as you’re not getting fired, arrested, or sold to the highest bidder. And if you suddenly come into money, remember who has always shared her emergency chocolate stash with you during the worst deadlines.”

“Deal,” I said, and meant it.

She hesitated, glancing toward the windows that looked out on the rest of the campus.

“Did you see the crown prince while you were up in the tower?”

“No.”

“Damn. Shame. You always get this specific look when he’s anywhere in the building. Don’t even try to deny it. I’ve known you too long.”

I kept my expression carefully neutral, even though Lisa flicked her tail in irritation at being so easily read.

“He’s objectively extremely good-looking. Biology does what biology does. It means nothing.”

“True enough.” Nora spun a pen between her fingers.

“Still makes you wonder what kind of Omega actually ends up permanently attached to someone like that. Has to be someone impressive.”

Melanie Hargrave, I thought.

Or at least she was supposed to be.

I still couldn’t figure out how she’d got herself marked by someone else when the alternative on the table was Rhett Vanderbilt.

Maybe the man was a complete nightmare behind closed doors.

Or perhaps she’d simply wanted out of the arrangement badly enough to burn every bridge she had and salt the earth behind her.

I stared at the data cascading across my monitor without seeing a single number.

Ten million dollars and a temporary marriage to the one Alpha whose scent still lived in my memory like a physical brand.

It should have felt like winning some twisted lottery.

Instead, it felt like standing on the edge of a cliff in total darkness, unable to tell whether the drop below was five feet or five hundred.

Lisa had been restless and vocal since the moment his scent first hit me in that office.

 She didn’t understand five-year contracts or strategic alliances, or the careful language of prenuptial agreements.

 She only understood the way his presence had rolled over both of us and the old, dangerous heat that still answered it without my permission.

I pressed two fingers firmly on the back of my neck. The skin felt distinctly warmer than it should have, sensitive in a way that made my stomach tighten.

The dark-wood scent still seemed to cling to the inside of my lungs, stubborn and invasive, as if it had followed me all the way back down thirty-eight floors and through the campus. Just to remind me of what I had signed.

I had the irrational, bone-deep sense that none of it was ordinary anymore.

Somewhere across the city, Rhett Vanderbilt was probably already deep in his next meeting, the entire transaction filed away under completed tasks and forgotten.

And I was sitting here with the memory of his scent still living under my skin, wondering how long I could keep pretending that the words “it doesn’t matter who he is” had ever been anything but a desperate lie I told myself to survive.

Lisa paced another slow, deliberate circle inside my chest and finally settled into a watchful crouch.

But she didn’t sleep. And neither did the heat slowly building under my skin.