Guatemala was exactly how I remembered it, except that there were a lot more Internet cafes than I recalled. It was a little harder to adjust to waking up at five in the morning everyday to go perform hard labor for a couple of hours before breakfast than it had been as a teenager, but after the first couple of weeks, I had gotten into the rhythm of things.

The group I was with had upgraded its volunteer lodgings considerably, and I had my own room in a beachside home that had been donated by the estate of a local philanthropist who appreciated all the work the charity had done for the community. His grandson Maynor was still the property manager, and after our project director had been hospitalized due to a turncoat gallbladder, I found myself in the acting CEO position yet again. Maynor was due to come by that afternoon to fix a leaking pipe upstairs, and the omegas on staff wouldn’t stop making euphemistic comments about other pipes that might require his attention.

Not that I could blame them. If I was a twenty-year-old college student again, I’d probably be equally smitten by the good looking Alpha with his curly black hair, bronzed skin and eyes that knew no depths. He was about a decade too young for me, but for some reason, I was the one he’d decided to flirt with.

In the beginning, I’d indulged it and even flirted back a little, telling myself that if Reece could pretend like I didn’t exist for fourteen years and take a wife, I could engage in a little harmless flirtation with a guy I was never even going to see again. It didn’t make me feel any less guilty.

What the hell was wrong with me? I’d come to Guatemala partly because I needed space from Reece, and now I couldn’t get him out of my head. It had been two months, and I was supposed to be getting over him. Instead, I found myself twirling his ring between my fingers every night before I went to sleep, contemplating what it would be like to actually put it on but never brave enough to try.

“Those eyes are too beautiful to be filled with such sadness.”

I looked up to find Maynor watching me as he leaned on the porch column. With a white linen shirt that was always part of the way open and jeans tight enough to make it clear he was packing heat of one variety or another, he was the perfect distraction incarnate. After all, I’d pledged Reece neither my loyalty nor a yes to his preemptive proposal. I stood from the porch swing and wandered over to him.

Sometimes my heart skipped when I thought of the words he’d spoken before we parted ways at the airport, and others it raced for a different reason. Had he really meant everything he’d said, or was it just some power move to ensure that I wouldn’t find anyone else while I was out there finding myself?

“I’m not sad, just thinking.”

“About the Alpha who gave you that ring?”

I looked down at my hand, thinking I’d put it on somehow without realizing it. My left hand was bare, as always, and Maynor gave me a knowing smile.

“You American omegas do love to gossip.” He paused. “Well, the others do. You’re different.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

His smile widened. “Do you want it to be?”

I rolled my eyes and stepped back to let him in. “The broken pipe is in the women’s bathroom. I’m pretty sure they’ve been flushing rocks down the toilet in hopes that you’ll show up, so be prepared for anything.”

He laughed, the tools in his belt clanging together as he climbed the stairs. I bit my lip and tried not to look at his ass as I followed him up.

I knew for a fact that it was too soon for me to be going into heat again and I’d timed my trip to end accordingly, but I had a hell of a lot more pent-up energy than usual. I was also nauseous, which helped keep my hormones in check. Most of the others had long since gotten over their travel sickness, but no matter how careful I was not to shock my system with tap water, or how studiously I avoided spicy food, I was having a hard time keeping anything down.

“Oh, hi, Maynor,” Lincoln said, conveniently coming out of his room as soon as he heard us on the stairs. He smoothed down his hair and batted his eyes at the Alpha. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

Maynor gave him a goodnatured smile. “Good to see you again,” he said before walking past Lincoln and into the gradually flooding bathroom.

The kid looked crestfallen and I patted his shoulder on the way past. If anyone knew what it was like to nurse a hopeless crush, it was me.

“So, what’s the verdict?” I asked, leaning in the doorway as I watched Maynor examining the leaking pipe in the ceiling.

“Just a little rust,” he said, glancing over at me. “Nothing I can’t patch up in time to take you to dinner.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You’re asking me out in the girls’ bathroom?”

He looked down at the floor like he’d just remembered where we were. “I don’t suppose you could wait ten minutes and we’ll try it again downstairs?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “As sweet as that is, I’m afraid it wouldn’t change my answer.”

“Let me guess. The mysterious Alpha who gave you a ring you never wear but keep in your bedside table every night.”

“That’s some pretty detailed gossip for the maintenance guy.”

He grinned unapologetically. “I said I’d help the others with their Spanish, and I figured I might as well get some information out of it.”

“Lo siento, no salgo con estudiantes universitarios. How’s my Spanish?” I asked dryly.

He chuckled. “Perfecto. But the beautiful thing about English and Spanish is that yes is as easy to say as no, and it sounds so much better.”

I shook my head, fighting a smile. “You know, if I’d met you the last time I was here, I think I just might have taken you up on that.”

“If we’d met the last time you were here, I would probably have had to take you to dinner on my bike.”

I laughed. “A fair point. And also the main reason I’m saying no.”

“But not the only reason.”

“No,” I conceded. “Not the only reason.”

He gave a half-teasing sigh and tucked his thumbs into his belt loops. “I hope this American Alpha of yours is as deserving of your loyalty as he must feel to let you go so far from home without him.”

“He didn’t ‘let’ me do anything,” I said firmly. “And it’s less about loyalty, more about the fact that I’m not capable of seeing anyone else that way.” I came to the realization only as I spoke.

Maynor’s gaze softened with understanding. “He’s a lucky man.”

“As is the omega you end up with. But if you’re really looking for someone to have dinner with, Lincoln is about as sweet as they come, and I know for a fact he could use help with his Spanish.”

“Lincoln?” He glanced toward the door, like he hadn’t even considered the shy college sophomore.

I sighed. “You Alphas are all the same. You say you want a nice omega to take home to your mothers, but you never actually notice the shy guy who’s head over heels for you, just the cocky pricks who won’t give you the time of day. Take it from a cocky prick who used to be the shy guy, you’re made for each other.”

He ran a hand through his hair and I could tell he was looking back, trying to see all the hints and flirtations he’d missed. “He is pretty cute.”

I followed him out of the bathroom once he’d finished patching up the pipe and wished him good luck. Before he’d finished descending the stairs, I wound up doubling back and barely made it to the sink in time before I lost my morning latte.

Even if my conscience failed me, it looked like my body was going to make sure I made the right decision.

“Ellis? Are you okay?” asked Lynn, one of the female Alphas who’d come along with the group. She was a doctor volunteering her time for the charity, and we’d bonded over the fact that she had as much of a bone to pick with Roman Enterprises’ take no prisoners approach to business as I did. Ever since Gray had bought the electronic records company her office used and encouraged the state legislators to pass a bill requiring all providers to switch over to the new system, the smaller practices had been struggling to keep up. “You uh, know you’re in the wrong bathroom, right?”

“Yeah,” I laughed, guzzling water from the faucet. “Sorry, just got sick all of a sudden.”

She tilted her head and watched me worriedly. “You were sick at the site this morning, too.”

“I’ll be alright. Probably just nerves.”

“Right. Because running a Fortune 500 company didn’t stress you out, but managing a small team of volunteer contractors is just too much.”

“Maybe I have a stomach bug.”

“Maybe you’re pregnant,” she said, folding her arms.

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m a doctor, I’m in the business of going from the most to least likely diagnoses. When it comes to an otherwise stalwart and healthy omega who’s suddenly unable to hold his lunch down, pregnancy is at the top of the ‘likely’ list.”

I groaned. She was right, of course. I’d wondered myself on more than one occasion, but if I was pregnant, that complicated things in ways I wasn’t yet prepared to deal with. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to take a test.”

“You’re in luck, sweetheart. The doctor is in.”

* * *

As I sat on the exam table in Lynn’s infirmary, waiting for the results of the blood test that was still stinging the crook of my arm, my thoughts drifted back home as they so often did. I wondered if he thought of me half as often, or if, for all his proclamations of caring and wanting to be together when I returned, he’d put me out of his mind as easily as he had the first time.

Sometimes I was grateful for the distance and the clarity it provided, especially since I knew I wouldn’t have been able to resist his charms or his attempts to put things right if I’d been close. Others, I missed him so much it hurt, and I hated myself for letting it happen. For letting myself need him in any way, when I knew damn well I couldn’t trust him.

How was I supposed to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life when I couldn’t even picture it without him in it? He was there in the way of everything. I couldn’t imagine starting a new career without wondering how it might affect our time together when I hadn’t even promised him any of it, or dream about starting over in a new city without instinctively reminding myself that we couldn’t move together without uprooting his daughter’s life.

I wasn’t even dating the guy and yet I found myself incapable of even thinking about life decisions that didn’t revolve around him. It pissed me the hell off, but when I did finally manage to force my mind to create a scenario that didn’t involve him, it felt empty.

The door opened and I searched Lynn’s face in the vain hope of finding her answer before she gave it. “Well?” I pressed even though she was barely through the door. “Am I pregnant or not?”

“You’re impatient is what you are,” she huffed. “And yes, you’re pregnant, too.”

I took a deep breath, or tried. My chest was too tight for my lungs to fill up all the way. I let out a strangled laugh, because it was better than crying. “Well, shit.”

“I know that’s not the result you were hoping for, hon.” She gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. As kind as she was, she was still an Alpha, but the fact that she was older made her presence far more comforting than unnerving. “Just remember, there are options.”

My stomach churned as she echoed the words of the doctor I’d spoken to years earlier, after Brayden had forced me to get checked out. The possibility that I’d gotten pregnant then had paralyzed me with terror until the test finally came back negative, and I wasn’t sure what I would have done if it hadn’t. I’d been alone in every sense that mattered then, and too scared to know how to take care of myself, let alone another life. Now, things were different. I wasn’t alone, despite the lies my mind liked to feed me sometimes. I had resources, and as much as it terrified me still, it was a different kind of fear from what I’d felt then. This time, it was a product of my choice and the week I’d shared with Reece, however impermanent that bond turned out to be. I already knew what my options were, it was just a matter of how long I had to get myself together before I told Reece.

“How far along am I?”

“A little less than three months, which is a good thing if you decide to carry the pregnancy to term.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re Rh-negative, but the test showed Rh antibodies in your blood. I’m assuming you don’t know the blood type of the father?”

“Um. Actually, yeah. O-positive.”

She blinked at me.

“In my defense, we had biology together junior year and they did that finger stick thing.” The fact that I remembered that, I had no excuse for. “Why does it matter?”

“If the baby’s blood type is also positive, your body could start attacking it. It’s a relatively common problem, and the good news is that it’s very easy to prevent this early on, but the treatment isn’t as straightforward for male omegas as it is for females. I’m going to have to recommend that you get back to the States as soon as possible.”

I swallowed hard. “That’s what I was afraid of.”