The Arrangement (Omegas of Hunter's Point Book 1)

Chapter 1

Damian Ambrose jaunted up the stairs to the multi-story, century-old location of his family's law firm, Sharp and Ambrose. In his periphery, he saw at least two photographers positioned down the street to catch his arrival as he'd walked through the glass-doored entry. Being an Ambrose came with the expectation that one's life would never be entirely private, but Mother Goddess, his father's funeral had been less than a month ago. Couldn't those picture-snapping vultures leave him alone at least a little while longer?

He stepped into the elevator and got a good look at the alpha staring back at him in the reflective doors. The man looked every year of his age and then some - hair limp, skin dull, and his turquoise eyes smudged with circles so dark they looked bruised. Had the funeral really only been a month ago? With everything that had happened since, the past few weeks had passed like years. He'd attended too many funerals of late.

Offering his front office manager, Rosalie, a weary smile, he continued past her to his expansive corner office. It had been his father's office first. Even with the elder Mr. Ambrose dead and gone, the place clung to the mean old bastard's scent as if there'd be consequences for letting it go. Acidic aggression and cruelty. It made Damian's stomach clench as it always had in his father's presence. It was bad enough he had to see his father's face every time he looked at his own reflection. He'd be damned if he was going to be held in check by a ghost. He turned and cracked a window, gulping the fresh spring air that poured in.

He leaned against his desk. At least this was new. His. It and everything on it had always been his, not a hand-me-down from a dead man the world was better off without. As always, the digital photo frame on the corner closest to him made his heart contract with a lingering pang. The simple looping image showed him, fresh-faced at his law school graduation, with a petite, blonde omega hanging around his neck. Their faces had almost been mirror-images, though they'd been born two years apart. Male and female. Alpha and omega. Her light hair contrasting his dark.

Emily. The only one of his siblings he'd ever felt close to. Her sudden death had torn a crevasse open inside him that had not even begun to heal. He doubted it ever truly would.

Clients who caught sight of the photo assumed Em to be his mate. He let them think it. It was easier than responding to the conventional wisdom that he just hadn't found the right girl, usually followed by awkward offers of introductions to eligible omega daughters, or worse yet answering questions about his unmated status, especially the one his mother had favored for the better part of a decade: "When are you going to fulfil your responsibility to this family and produce an heir?" Often echoed by his youngest brother, Stefan. As eldest, it had always been the expectation. He would mate well, as his father had, to a cultured omega of high social standing, settle down, and have a family started by the time he turned twenty-five. Despite the string of omegas his parents had paraded in front of him for years (and later threats from his father he'd choose one for him), Damian had remained stubbornly unattached, much to his parents' consternation.

Speaking of which, he hoped what's-her-name (Demi? Dani? Dora?) hadn't objected too much to waking up alone. He'd been so drunk by the time he decided on the pretty little beta at whatever bar he'd wandered into last night that, outside of talking her through driving his vehicle to her place and staggering up the stoop, he didn't remember much. The sex had undoubtedly been average. She'd come. He awoken in an unfamiliar bed next to a stranger (not unusual), hungover and reeking of that fresh-cut grass scent most beta women exuded, his member still at half-mast. Had there been time, he'd have given her a farewell tumble, but alas... What with the walk of shame and his desperate need for a shower, he'd barely made it to work before 9am.

A knock on his office door drew his attention to the silver-haired Rosalie. Thank the gods for Rosalie. The beta had made the transition as painless as she'd been able, and for that he would be forever grateful.