“What?” I asked, my mouth dropping open.
“We’ll increase that once we see your work performance,” said Zaff, who was clearly worried that I’d refuse the job offer.
Oh my god.
“That’s a lot of money,” I said, as I imagined cars, clothes, and all the perfume I ever wanted piled in my new home.
“So, how does it sound? Willing to work for us until death do us part?” joked Oscar, and the men laughed as I turned over the idea in my head. I couldn’t believe the amount of money he was offering. That would change my life forever. Maybe I wouldn’t tell my aunt about the alphas, and I would just work until I had saved up enough.
“Yes, I’m interested,” I said while my heart pounded in my chest. I had no control over what the hell my mouth was spewing out now.
“Excellent,” said Zaff, while Chad slid documents to me over the cherry wood table. There was no way I could refuse this amount of money, and I thought I had won the lottery as Chad read over the terms before I signed each paper with my messy scrawl of a signature.
“This document states that you will agree to wear the uniform we deem best for you,” said Chad. “Do you agree to those terms?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said without overthinking about it. I was good with whatever outfit they provided for me, and honestly, I didn’t care for that amount of money. At least I didn’t have to worry about wearing my ratty shirt and jeans.
After signing all the papers, my mind was completely overwhelmed with all kinds of possibilities. I would work as hard as possible so they would be impressed. All of my clients were usually impressed after I deep cleaned for them.
“Thank you for the job opportunity,” I said, getting up from my chair.
“This is quite exciting,” drawled Oscar, who gazed at me with a look that seemed to peel off every layer of my clothing. Or maybe it was just my imagination because he was an alpha, and alphas had weird powers like that. I couldn’t imagine if I was an omega and always falling prey to their charms. Each of these men was devilishly handsome in their own way, and I had to somehow find a way to work here without falling over my feet.
“We can’t wait to start with you,” said Ruston, who was already uploading the signed documents online.
“Agreed,” said Chad, who was looking at me as I walked to the door. At that moment, it felt like Ruston’s sentence held a deeper meaning than just wanting me to work. I could almost swear he meant something else by it.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” said Zaff.
We silently walked to the front door, and the doorman opened the door politely for us as we made our way outside. Maybe I would have a doorman like that one day, I thought giddily. I couldn’t wait to tell my aunt everything except the part about the alphas.
“Thank you again,” I said breathlessly, turning to him. “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning.”
“I am glad you decided to give this a chance,” said Zaff, his eyes light as the sun shone on his perfectly angled face. He crossed his arms over his chest, wrinkling his dress shirt. “Even though you made it a little difficult at first.”
“I was just nervous,” I said, hoping he didn’t think I didn’t want the job. I just didn’t want to work with a bunch of alphas who could potentially be deadly to the only family member who cared about me.
“That’s perfectly normal,” he said, his eyes softening as he gazed at me. My heart started beating erratically. He couldn’t look at me like that, or else I’d melt like ice cream under the hot sun.
“Alright, bye,” I said, breathing hard as I turned and started walking towards the pathway down the driveway. As I passed the shiny cars, I couldn’t help but admire my favorite one again. Once I was walking along the long winding path down between the trees and the little roadway, I started to breathe a little easier away from the alphas. Being around their scents was overwhelming and intoxicating.
The fresh air was making it a little easier to think.
But suddenly, I noticed to my right that a limousine was following close by. My feet moved a bit faster, but I could see from the side of my eye that the car was still on pace with me. Wondering what the hell was happening, I quickly turned to see who was driving the thing, and I saw the window in the back sliding down.
Zaff poked his perfectly slicked-back hair out the window. Oh no. What did he want this time?
“Do you have a ride?” he asked me as the driver of the limo kept pace with me. I paused walking, and the limo stopped moving as well.
“I took a bus here,” I said nonchalantly.
“My driver can give you a ride,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly. “Thank you for offering.”
“Breanna, I insist. Allow me to give you a ride home,” said Zaff. Red flags started to arise within me. Why did he care if I got home safely or not? Or was he just a nice guy in general? I couldn’t believe the latter.
“How do I know you won’t kill me and dump my body in the woods somewhere?” I asked, half-joking and half-serious.
He laughed.
“Then I wouldn’t have gone through all the trouble of making you sign contracts for me,” he said. “Consider this a work transportation from our company.”
“Oh,” I squeaked, staring at the black shiny limousine. I always wondered how it would feel riding in one of those things. “Alright then.”
The limo was nice and relaxing as I sat in the backseat with Zaff. The serious driver didn’t even say a word as he drove the long miles after I told them my address. I couldn’t believe I was literally sitting next to a billionaire.
“You must be so lucky,” I blurted out.
“Lucky, how?”
Shit, I should have kept quiet. But now it was too late, and I was going to seem poor.
“That you could afford your own drivers and cars.”
“Not lucky,” he said, sitting relaxed beside me as his hand curled over the edge of the chair. “It’s about hard work and determination. Ruston started the pathway for us to own our careers after he started his billion-dollar app idea.”
“Which app?” I asked.
“The Green Ride app,” he said, and my eyes widened. I had the app downloaded on my phone but never used that ride-share service that only had electric cars as transport. It was the most popular app with young people, but I could never afford it.
Maybe after my new job, I thought gleefully.
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“We never thought it would blow up the way it did,” he said, deep in his thoughts. Then he looked over at me and smiled. “One day, you’ll get there too. I have my own chain of restaurants, and in the beginning, it’s hard, but at the end, you’ll see reward.”
“I never thought about that,” I said, looking down at my interlocked fingers. “What if it fails?”
“It’s better to fail than to never try, right?” he pointed out, and I smiled.
“You’re right,” I said, looking up and realizing that he was still looking at me. My pulse pounded faster, and I looked out the window behind him and noticed that we were getting closer to my neighborhood.
I started to panic. I couldn’t let him see where I lived.
“You can stop right here,” I said quickly, and the limo stopped in front of an average-looking home. It was much better than allowing them to see the trailer I lived in. “Thank you so much for the ride.”
“No problem,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, I’ll have someone pick you up at eight a.m.”
“Oh, okay,” I said nervously since we were in front of the wrong house. “I’ll…I’ll be here.”
He patted my arm, and my face heated up at the contact. This drop-dead gorgeous man just touched my arm. As I walked away from the limo, my face burned when I realized he was still sitting there as I walked up to the house.
Walking as slowly as possible, I looked back and saw that the limo was still there, so I waved politely so he could go away.
Fuck.
I stood in front of the main door and pretended to rummage in my small purse for my keys for as long as possible. But still, the car didn’t move. He wanted to make sure I entered the house safely.
Zaff
“Don’t drive away yet,” I ordered the driver.
I had to make sure she was in the house safely before we left. The neighborhood looked sketchy enough to me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about her living here. The houses were all rundown, and the lawns were not mowed at all. There were piles of random wood and garbage piled up on the side of the roads, too.
Breanna was acting pretty strange, though. She had been looking in her purse for over five minutes for her keys, and I started to get a little worried. I couldn’t believe she accepted the job. In all reality, she was too beautiful to clean houses.
After seeing her face in the job ad, I couldn’t resist her. I couldn’t help but stare at her soft curves as she bent her head, looking in her purse. Her chestnut hair draped over her face in her frantic efforts.
She suddenly walked back towards the limo, and I opened the window.
“Is everything okay?” I inquired.
“Yes, feel free to go,” she said breathlessly. “I found my keys, but I think I’ll buy a small snack first down the street.”
“I can give you a ride,” I offered, hoping it wasn’t too much for her. If I acted too creepy, she’d never step foot into our pack house again.
“It’s okay,” she said quickly, losing patience with me as she started to walk away.
Rolling the window up, I realized something was off with her now. She seemed a little short with me.
“Follow her, but don’t make it obvious,” I said to the driver, who was trained to avoid detection.
“Yes, sir,” he said quickly, and I smiled because he seemed excited about the hunt. Jeff was never excited about anything except his vacations and his family. He started to drive down the road in the opposite direction of where Breanna was heading towards. After a few minutes, he made a U-turn, and we slowly followed from a distance.
She seemed unaware and lost in her thoughts as we slowly followed her.
I suddenly realized we were at a trailer park now, and there were children without shoes running around in the sand that had broken glass embedded into it. I started to feel bad that I’d probably given her a hard time about giving her a ride.
She didn’t want me to see this.
I saw her enter the front door of her trailer, which didn’t have a lock on it at all, and I decided that it needed to be changed as soon as possible. Anyone could enter the trailer and cause her harm. In front of the trailer was an older woman with white hair shaped into a bun and smoking. It must be a relative of hers.
“Let’s go, Jeff,” I said. “I have quite the project for our staff at home.”
