Lights, Camera, Omega (Hollywood Omegas #1)

I’m more than a little shocked that he’s already lined up meetings without even consulting me with the details. It’s anger rather than fear that rises first. I may look like a little ray of sunshine, but ol’ Vinny’s about to get burned.

“I don’t remember approving of their pack portfolios,” I snip haughtily, doing my best to play at bored and aloof.

Vinny smiles so I can see the entire top row of his slightly overcrowded, blinding white teeth.

“Listen Daph.” He knocks on the table thoughtfully before continuing.

“The reason you pay a guy like me is to connect you with the right people in this business.” He leans back to reach into his briefcase, producing three small zippered leather pouches to set down on the table in front of me.

I can’t smell anything through the fine grain leather, but my pulse quickens just knowing what’s inside. The little baseball card sized swatches of scent that can take you from a cold shower or puppies frolicking in a field of daisies to ‘dirty bitch who loves to fuck” in .5 seconds.

In the center, I didn’t have to worry about any kind of etiquette. The attendants all let me learn at my own pace, free of judgment. The caseworkers had told me roughly about how my meetings with placement agencies would go, but she hadn’t explained that I might end up with an agent like Vinny the eel.

“Go ahead, Daph,” Vinny encourages, impatience edging his tone.

“What are you waiting for? Girls like you dream of the kind of packs I’ve brought here for you.”

I already hate when he calls me ‘Daph,’ but I’m trying hard enough not to make waves just navigating the basics of this conversation. I don’t want to come off as self-centered and vapid. Especially not in my first meeting with my new, albeit kinda creepy, agent.

“Just gimme a minute, Vinny.” I laugh nervously, wiping my clammy hands on my fabric napkin.

I took my meds this morning, but there was an unfortunate truth to what Vinny was saying earlier. I am behind schedule. I can feel the need rising in my body, still there as a powerful undercurrent flowing beneath the steady thrum of the suppressants that have kept me from falling into the chasm of abandon of my first heat. At the edges of my dosage times, I can truly tell it’s only just.

Without fully meaning to, I’ve already picked up a black leather pouch and unzipped it. Inside are little bits of fabric blend paper in teensy plastic ziploc bags. My hands threaten to tremble as I pull one of the slips, marked with the letter “A” in the corner, and press it under my nose to get a whiff.

An alpha, a potent one. Rich piny resin, sweet amber, rain slicked leaves. This mystery man smells like an escape to the mountains. Lovely, but I’m not sure if it’s for me.

“Pack Dubois.” Vinny gestures to the leather pouch in my hand and gives a nod.

“These boys are all industry professionals. Almost all of them are in front of the camera, including Amos there.” He waggles a finger at the scent card in my hand.

“Benton is the only non-actor. He’s a director,” Vinny explains.

Amos Bennett. Benton Dubois. They’re huge names, A-List stars. This has to be some sort of mistake.

Vinny takes one look at my seasick complexion and barks a laugh.

“Doin’ the mental math, aren’t you, sweetheart?” He sits back in his chair, taking in my shock with delight.

“It’s just a little bit of a shock.” I say truthfully.

“Daph, if you think that’s a shock, you better keep going down the stack!” Vinny laughs again, privy to a joke where I don’t yet know the punchline.

I pull the most garish of the pouches, a cream-colored leather number with gold zipper hardware, off of the top of the remaining pile.

“Get a load of that, will ya?” Vinny snorts as I open the ostentatious pouch, an accordion of satin lined leather sections.

I pull one of the gold edged and lettered cream paper cards from one of the folding sections, my eyes nearly forcing closed from the huge wave of sweet agave and woody cedar. Smoky and sweet, things I had always liked in a masculine scent, but somehow, they blended in a way that was sickly and overpowering.

Before I could give Vinny my response, he blurted out his secret, unable to contain his own pride at being able to present such offerings to his client.

“You know who that is, sweetheart? That’s Johnny fuckin’ Angel from Lost Daze,” he announces the frontman from the top 40 mainstay Lost Daze, and I feel even more detached from reality.

“Vinny, you really weren’t kidding when you said that most women would kill to be in my shoes, but what makes you think that any of these packs are going to want me—in my shoes,” I blurt, my panic taking the wheel.

Vinny laughs as if I’ve made the funniest joke he’s heard in recent memory, slapping his knees and wiping at the corners of his eyes with his napkin to wipe away his tears.

“Daph, babe–” He begins, regaining control of himself.