Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(8)
“You’re David’s cousin,” Matthieu said, mild voice low and hinting at a French accent smoothed by a long stay in the States. “Welcome to Designate.”
“Let me show you around,” Cyrus said, taking the cue from Matthieu’s restraining hand and stepping back to offer me space to walk past them both to the office doors.
I took one steadying breath and forced my feet to move, nearing them both as Matthieu backed up and made more room for me.
“Enjoy your day,” he said, gray-blue eyes watching me briefly before turning and jerking his head to Cyrus, encouraging him to walk ahead of me.
What had David told them? He couldn’t have said more than he’d known—that I’d gotten myself mixed up with cruel alphas, and afterward had barely been able to bring myself to leave David’s apartment for months. But David had promised not to say anything on the topic at all, so maybe Matthieu Segal was just good at reading body language, or maybe I was projecting terror more obviously than I realized.
“You’re coming in while we’re in the middle of a few projects, which might feel chaotic at first, but I think it’ll give you a good picture of the way we work. I saw your video series and I’m excited to have you at the table for our planning sessions,” Cyrus said, walking almost sideways toward the office doors.
His excitement was palpable, matching his tipsy scent and contrasting strongly against Matthieu’s more subdued and grounded presence.
“I’ve been a subscriber of the magazine for as long as I can remember,” I said, pushing the muscles of my own face into some semblance of a smile. Both alphas pushed a door open, and I focused on the receptionist at her clean cream desk with the lush bouquets on each corner, rather than their imposing and potent energies on either side of me. “I’m looking forward to being a part of the process.”
“Mr. Segal, Ben is upstairs, ready for you. Good morning, Mr. Cohen,” the receptionist greeted, a beautiful, young beta with a blue-black bob cut and electric pink lipstick that paired nicely with her pale skin.
“Morning, Daze. This is Lola, my new beauty assistant. Will you get her set up and then bring her over to my wing?” Cyrus asked. I stiffened as my coat shifted, Cyrus’ hand landing at the base of my back for a soft beat. “I’ll see you in a bit, Lola.”
Daze, which was probably some kind of nickname but suited the preternaturally pristine woman, rounded the desk with a beaming smile.
“Let me take your coat, and I’ll give you the tour,” Daze said.
Cyrus was equally as exuberant as I reached the beauty department’s long row of offices, but this time his energy was absorbed by the three other editorial assistants in the room with me. Designate’s beauty-halla, as one of the other assistant editors called it, was the kind of spectacularly compartmentalized, stunningly organized, thoroughly stocked makeup inventory my dreams were made of.
I was trying to follow the line of conversation at the large conference table littered with highlighters and blushes and mascaras and lipsticks and palettes for days. Except my eyes kept drifting to other corners of the room. The canisters of brushes. The fridge of face masks. The turning mirrors with varying levels of magnification.
“It’s like going to the toy store when you were a kid, isn’t it?” one of my new coworkers asked. Betty, I reminded myself, a redhead I was mentally referring to as ‘queen of blending’ due to her impeccable contouring and perfect smoky eye. She looked a bit like she was waiting for someone to turn a camera in her direction, rather than the person who was planning the photoshoots, but a year and a half ago and I would’ve been the same if I’d worked here.
“I want to be everywhere at once,” I said under my breath. “There are some brands here I’ve never even seen in person before.” And certainly never tried, given how pricey they were.
Betty nodded and grinned gleefully. “And we’re the lucky bitches who get to sample it.”
“I thought Designate was aiming younger,” I mentioned. “Can our audience really afford Rubenesque?”
Betty’s grin faded to a frown, her brow tangling at me, but Cyrus answered me from the other end of the table.
“Probably not. You’re right. It’s one of the issues we’re struggling with lately. Now that we’re cruelty-free, our options are narrowed. We don’t get Rubenesque’s advertising money if we stop featuring their products, but telling our subscribers that the best powder foundation is sixty bucks a pop isn’t winning us a lot of popularity from the leading indie beauty influencers.”
“Designate is about high-end beauty,” Zane, our only other male at the table, answered with a roll of his eyes. “High-end is high prices.”
Cyrus’ lips twitched at me, and one of his shoulders shrugged softly. He had perfect bone structure and a clean-shaven head, and his skin shone just enough to hint at a bit of product, the gloss offset by the faint shadow of a beard over his jaw. His eyes were slanted, almost catlike, eternally teasing, and the table was quiet before I realized our stares were locked together, the pair of us smiling.
Knock it off, idiot, I hissed at myself, jerking in my chair and looking down at the layout on the table, a mock-up of “Products to ‘Zest’ Up Your Routine” with a theme of citrus names to the colors.