Page 100 of Heat Lightning

“Max,” she began.

I knew from the soft tone of her voice that I’d fold immediately, no matter what she said, but I swore to hold out as long as I could.

“We shouldn’t have kept secrets from you for so long. I should have been more honest about my friendship with Atlas when you told me about him. But I hope you’ll understand how complicated everything was. We didn’t keep you in the dark out of spite or malice. You know what’s at stake if he were discovered. And Atlas… he’s… Well. He’s never been an open book.”

I couldn’t help the tremble in my lip. “I feel stupid and naive all over again.”

Sensing my impending cry fest, Gwen reached for a tissue and passed it over. “You’re not. Not at all.”

I let out the waterworks. “You’re just the only real friend I’ve ever h-had, and you know everything about me—all the w-worst things. I feel blindsided that there’s been something so b-big between us this entire t-time. It feels like you’re all l-laughing at me. Like… like Joey’s laughing at me again.”

“Shh,” she said, wrapping me up in a hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Was it real?” I whispered, doing my best not to get snot on her shoulder.

“Was what real?”

“Are you really m-my friend? Or was that fake?”

She pulled back, eyes darting between mine in horror. “Oh, Max. Of course, I’m your friend. God, what do you think we did? Plotted to trick you into feeling wanted for two years?”

When she said it like that, it sounded ridiculous. I shrugged. “It just feels like the rug’s been pulled out from under me all over again. Joey was my friend. I thought I knew him, and didn’t see what he did coming. I thought I knew what our friendship was, too. I thought I knew Atlas.”

She grabbed me by the shoulders, eyes intense. “You do. You know me. And him, too, I suspect.”

I took a deep breath, eyes skittering away. “Does Mr. Marino really like my food? Or was that just a part of the plan, too?”

She sighed. “Once we knew you were going to be okay, Atlas asked Saint to give you an interview because he knew you’d gone to culinary school. You know how Saint is, Max. The man doesn’t tolerate bullshit. If he hated your food, he would’ve found something else to recommend you for.”

“And the apartment?”

“The guest house was already set up to function as two separate dwellings. It’s common for staff to live in for positions like yours. No one was keeping you hidden or trying to manipulate you. I think…”

“What?”

She sighed. “It really is for Atlas to tell. But I think he wanted you to have somewhere safe to call your own.”

I couldn’t even process that he’d lived there before I moved in. For two years, his scent had haunted me. It felt like he was everywhere.

Because he was everywhere.

Pissed off all over again, I said, “He rejected the bond. He’d rather go back on suppressants than mate with me. He doesn’t want anything from me he hasn’t already had.”

She palmed her face and mumbled something under her breath about melodramatic men. “I’ve been up since two in the morning, and it’s an atrocious hour of the day. I don’t think it will do any good to try sorting through that now. Will you please come home, and we can talk about it after we’ve had some rest?”

Home, my omega whined. Mate will be at home.

I did my best to ignore the pull I felt to go to him. My chest ached to be near him, like it was wrong to be this far away.

Truthfully, going home sounded infinitely better than sleeping on someone else’s dirty sheets, but I couldn’t give in that easily. “No, I’m not going back there. I’ll pick up Jeffrey tomorrow, but that’s it. I’m not staying where I might see him.”

Or smell him, or remember what he felt like inside me while he told me he loved me.

“He won’t come back unless he knows you want him to, Max.”

“Well, I don’t. And I don’t really want to see Mr. Marino, either. I want to move out.”

My omega howled.