Page 3 of Caught in His Sights
“I can do both.” Her silence rings with rejection, and I slump in defeat. “Email me if your photographers take any more photos. Otherwise, I’ll keep my ears open for more gossip.”
“Good boy.” She ends the call without a goodbye.
I set my phone down with more force than necessary, my heart pounding with frustration. How did I end up pigeonholed into writing unsubstantiated commentary about the elite when I went to school for investigative reporting?
“Fine.” A click of my mouse closes the erroneous photo, and I switch to my online blog, VanishingVoice. “If she won’t run it, I will.”
I select the draft of my article about the dock officials taking bribes and hit Publish.
There. Now the world—or at least the few followers I have—will know the truth.
My stomach twists as I check the number of subscribers. Still pathetic, which is why I keep trying to go through my day job to get my stories out there. But when do I accept that I’m yelling into a void?
The last post I made only received a couple hundred views and a handful of hearts.
As I wallow in self-pity, a new email alert pops up on my screen.
I open it, then stare with resignation at the death threat. It had been routed from my VanishingVoice blog. These trolls have no life. At least they didn’t review-bomb me this time.
This isn’t the first such message to land in my inbox. At first, they scared me, but like with all things, I’ve since grown numb. My address is unlisted, and I publish under a pseudonym. Even the email is rerouted from somewhere else.
It is one reason I haven’t taken the plunge and moved to vlogging, though, which would probably gain more traction.
“Who’d take me seriously on camera, anyway?” I run a hand through my straight black hair.
While I don’t resemble those voluptuous blonds with breeding hips for days, nothing can hide my delicate features. People in the news world don’t think Omegas have the fortitude to be in the business, even if we have the skills and the ambition to excel.
My gaze drifts to a picture on my desk of me with my brother, Dylan. We took it at his high school graduation, and the familial resemblance is strong, despite a five-year age gap.
We have the same olive-hued skin and hazel eyes, which we inherited from our papa, who gave up on life after our Alpha father died of an aneurysm in his early forties. Straight out of graduating from university, I moved back home to take care of Dylan.
Writing a gossip column supported us and continues to support me.
One day, I’ll write a story so earth-shattering that Lily can’t refuse to print it, and I’ll get away from entertainment columns. Until then, I’m stuck pumping out meaningless drivel.
I close my laptop and lean back in my chair to study the Playboy of the Year cover of Caleb Rockford hanging over my desk. “Will you give me the big break I need? What were you up to while your brother was pretending to be you?”
His piercing brown stare challenges me.
What would it be like to be held by him, surrounded by his Alpha pheromones? I bet he smells amazing.
Warmth fills me, and I check my Heat app. Only a few days until it hits.
Licking my lips, I open my laptop once more to the confirmation email on the toy I bought online, a small indulgence to help take the edge off of the coming fever to mate.
I click on the tracking number, and my heart skips a beat. Delivery is scheduled for tomorrow.
“Looks like we have a date, Caleb,” I tell the poster. “You may like pale blonds when you’re facing down the paparazzi, but in here, you like me.”
Too bad things only go my way in my fantasies.
2
The buzz of my phone jolts me from sleep, and I groan as my stiff neck sends a spike of pain through my body, followed by an ache that spreads down my spine.
I straighten in my computer chair, where I passed out sometime after the sun rose.
Last night, I started researching missing persons in the surrounding area and fell into a rabbit hole as one search led to another. Now, printouts cover my desk. The forums always have new stories, but chasing the leads to figure out which ones are real and which are just sensationalized stories to grab comments for clout takes a lot of leg work.