Hired for Heat (The Hired Series)

4. Sandra

Finally retiring to her open-floor suite at the top of the office building, the last thing Sandra wanted to do was go over another contract. Kicking off her heels as she came through the door, she pulled the pins from her long honey-blonde hair and let it fall around her shoulders, groaning in relief as she ran her fingers along her scalp. Digging her toes into the soft fibers of her white carpet, she let the tension of the day flow away.

Carefully removing her suit jacket and hanging it in the closet, she unbuttoned the top few buttons of her blouse and unzipped her skirt, letting it drop to the floor in a puddle. She had worked hard to get where she was, struggling through a male dominated business until her reputation allowed her to start her own company, and was considered the epitome of poise and class, but sometimes Sandra wished she could just relax and not have to keep such a tight rein on herself. Unfortunately, being not only a woman but also an omega, she constantly had to maintain her appearance if she wanted to keep her reputation. Being an architectural designer, many of her clients came from word-of-mouth and her maintaining the image of perfect professionalism. The long days at work left her little time to unwind.

It was days like this when she wondered what coming home to someone would be like. Instead of a quiet, empty suite, having someone there to greet her and spend time with. Someone who would help her prepare dinner and take her mind off all the crap she dealt with on a daily basis.

Huffing out a laugh, Sandra made her way to the kitchen where her dinner waited on the counter. Since she had no one waiting on her to help make dinner, she had no reason to cook for herself and usually had her assistant drop something off for her before leaving for the day. At least that was her excuse to order her dinner most nights of the week.

Settling on her sectional with her favorite pasta in one hand and her tablet in the other, Sandra propped her feet up on the purple cushions and pulled up the profiles she had asked Ms. Burrie to send her. She had received them before she had even made it back to the office but had forced herself to ignore them and focus on her work instead. Now she could take the time to read through each one.

While the first three held only minor interest for her, she made sure to read through each one before getting to the profile of Alpha twenty-eight. With him being the largest and so focused on his workout while she was there, Sandra hadn't expected much intellectually from him, but was pleasantly surprised to see how well he had done in all of his testing.

The man was intelligent, as well as fit, and even showed an interest in carpentry. It was easy to see why he had been chosen as a stud, though she wasn't sure why he would jeopardize that by fighting the other Alphas at The Haven. While most people viewed unbonded Alphas as a menace to society, she had never believed they were as barbaric as was claimed. Of course they could be highly aggressive and dominating, but that was just part of their biology. They couldn't help their reaction to an omega in heat any more than an omega could stop it and Sandra wasn't sure why the dynamic had been condemned for it. Without that drive, they would just be large betas with better equipment for breeding, but there were few who shared her views. She had a feeling that a lot of the stories about Alphas going on a rampage were either inflated or purposefully edited to show them in a bad light. Betas, being the most populous dynamic, had a way of looking down on the other two that Sandra was quite familiar with.

It had been decades since the mandates had been put in place and Alphas could move freely in society. Once they reached puberty and presented, they were separated from the public and sent to special schools. It was supposedly to help teach them control without the presence of anything that would distract them. They had also been relegated to the most basic of manual labor which Sandra had always felt was a bit unfair. It was claimed that the physical exertion helped keep them calm, but she thought that it was because they were the largest and strongest of the dynamics. One Alpha could do the work of two betas, and therefore saved money. Since the majority of the people that had put the mandates in place had been betas, she was sure this had a lot to do with it.

Alphas were only allowed to pursue other careers if they were bonded, since they were then considered tamer. At least, they were as long as their mates were safe and not in heat. A lot of the Alphas from more affluent families had arranged matings so that they could avoid the labor camps. The best position that an unmated Alpha could hope for was being a stud. They were able to live in relative comfort doing what very few would consider a 'job' and had a better chance of being selected to bond with an omega. An Alpha in a work-camp had little to no chance of even meeting an omega, much less being lucky enough to bond one.

Looking at his picture, Sandra admitted that the other Alphas had no chance. If she was going to do this, it was going to be with him, but she couldn't choose the stud without ever having interacted with him. She also felt a little squeamish picking him without getting his input first. She knew the Alphas had a contract with The Haven to tend any omega that chose them, but that felt a little too impersonal for something that was about as personal as anything could be. If he met her while she was in heat, her pheromones would send him into a rut, and he would have no choice. She wanted to be sure that he was okay with it before he was put into a position when neither of them would be able to say no.

Sending a message to Ms. Burrie to schedule a meeting with the Alpha, Sandra finally relaxed and finished her forgotten dinner. She still needed to review the contract, but since her research had told her the basics of what it would say, she felt it was okay to wait another day or two before going through it. There was still plenty of time before she was due to enter her heat, and she was too tired as it was to focus on something that she planned to pick through with a fine-toothed comb. She didn't get to the position she was in by being careless with things that affected her as much as this had the potential to. While going into heat was a simple fact of life for omegas that was acknowledged and accepted by everyone, how someone of her standing chose to spend her heat could drastically affect her business. Sandra had never had any scandal attached to her name, and she planned to keep it that way.

Cleaning up her dinner, she tossed the trash away and made her way to her room. She shed her blouse and bra before climbing into the bed that she had custom built. The edge of the mattress was high off the ground and formed a lip before sinking a few inches in the middle so that it resembled a shallow bowl. There was no frame visible or where it could be bumped into like she had done when she was a kid, giving herself an unknown amount of bruises on her shins. Burrowing into her blankets, she let out a content sigh as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.