I walked Lane back to his table, balancing two spritzers in one hand. I was using the other hand to help elaborate my advertisement campaign with gestures. He walked along beside me completely engaged in what I was telling him.

“Wow,” he awed, “that all sounds absolutely marvelous. I’m so excited to see how it all comes out in our magazine.”

“Thank you, it’s been a lot of fun coming up with the, err…concept,” my attention began to fade from the conversation as we approached the table. My attention was being pulled towards the distinctive platinum blond curls just ahead of me sitting alone at a table.

Lane still clung to my arm wanting to hear more about the campaign. I smiled at him, “I’m sorry, Lane, but you’re going to have to excuse me. I have the most incredibly handsome man waiting for me at that table right over there.” I pointed in Andy’s direction.

He sat with his back to us, sipping champagne, looking more ravishing than ever before in his silver-grey suit and short loose curls hanging perfectly.

“Oh, Andy! He’s my How To omega.” Lane revealed.

I gave him a quizzical look.

“Oh, he does the most amazing articles for my magazine! Right now he’s doing a piece on how to lose an alpha in just ten days!”

I turned my head fully around, slowly absorbing what he had just said.

Lane began to chuckle, “Oh he’s done the most terrible things to him, it’s horrible! One time, one time…” he braced his chest so he could manage to speak words through his laughter, apparently it was that funny. “He named the guy’s dick Princess LuLu! Can you believe that? Princess LuLu!” He continued laughing hysterically until he realized that I was the punch line of that joke.

“Oh.” He stopped himself from laughing and gave me a look of pity.

I felt as though a bus had just hit me. I turned back around to look at Andy sitting alone at the table, but the lights had started to fade, going dimmer and dimmer and then I lost sight of him. The theatre lights illuminated behind me, it seemed as though the presentation was about to begin.

Warren came on the stage and everyone clapped. I stayed put where I was, I couldn’t leave now and make a scene. Lane started to side step away, shimmying back among the tables to take a seat. I decided to follow so I wasn’t standing out in the open and I wove through the crowd after him.

“Hello ladies and gentlemen!” Warren spoke through the microphone, capturing everyone’s attention. “Thank you all for coming tonight, and a special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Florence for making this all possible.” He acknowledged the couple hosting this evening’s event. The spotlight shined on them and Mrs. Florence gave a royal wave to everyone in the room.

“I’d like to start this evening off by inviting to the stage the musically talented, the wonderful, award winning Mr. Marvin Hamlish!” Warren waved his arm and the music queued.

I looked back at the table to see if I would be able to spot Andy again but he was no longer in sight.

Marvin Hamlish began thanking everyone for coming to join him this evening when a microphone came screeching in, interrupting him completely from out of nowhere.

Tap Tap, “Hello, this thing on? Hi everyone, how is everyone doing tonight?” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was a very intoxicated Andy Anderson coming on stage for some horrifying reason I was not prepared for.

“A lot of you might not know Benjamin Barry and if you don’t, shame on you,” He slurred. “Benjamin Barry is a talented advertising executive, knowledgeable sports fan, and one hell of a guy!” I was mortified. It was like watching a car crash and having no way of stopping it.

“Ben is the man who put all of this together, he frosted you all this evening,” he continued. I palmed my face. “After everything I’ve seen this evening I am going to bet you will all have a fantastic evening thanks to Benjamin Barry. So, let’s all give one last round of applause to wagering man of many talents, Benjamin Barry.” With that he dropped the microphone, looking out at the audience with one last dead look in his eyes before storming off the stage and out of the building.

Who did he think he was? Coming to my event and stirring up a scene like this! After he intentionally used me for some dumb omega experiment! I took off after him. By the time I caught up to him he was out the door, down the steps and about to get into a taxi.

I pumped my legs as fast as I could down each step. I heard a security guard behind me yell something about the Balentine piece and felt him running behind me, but I ignored him, I was on a mission. “Hey! Hold on Andy, I’m not done with you yet!” I yelled as I caught up with him.

Andy spun around when I finally reached him just before he entered the cab. “You, Ben, are an arrogant piece of work! You used me to get ahead in your job! How dare you, you backstabbing jerk!” He scolded me in a threatening tone.

“Oh yeah, like you’re much better? You drove me half insane for some stupid magazine article!” I shouted back.

“Right, but you made me fall in love with you, Ben! You purposely broke my heart!”

Just then the security guard came between us, “Hey, hey you two! Please sir; you’re wearing the Baletine piece. Can I please have it back? Then you can go back to killing each other,” He asked uncomfortably.

Andy looked down at the ring, pausing for a moment. He took a deep breath sucking back his tears and removed the ring, placing it in the security guard’s hand.

“Thank you,” he said, and then walked away to let us hash out the rest of our problems.

“At least now you can use this as a little twist in your story, Andy.” I said hurtfully to him.

He sucked in another deep breath and a tear trickled down his face. “Yeah, Ben, that’s a good idea, why don’t you go ahead and bet on it.”

I shook my head in anger. “You know what? You wanted to lose an alpha in just ten days and well, congratulations, you just did.”

He looked me dead in the eye, “No, Ben, I didn’t, because you can’t lose something you never had.”

I stormed off back into the party. I had nothing more to say to him.