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Don’t react, Sawyer, I tell myself. That’s enough. Stop this right here. He’s… gorgeous and just as annoying, but that shouldn’t matter. None of it should.
A man who doesn’t like books isn’t my type of man, no matter how beautiful and sexy. That’s that. I have, after all, my list.
The list of features my ideal harem should sport.
Books are at the top of the list. That shouldn’t constitute any wonder for anyone who knows me. So this alpha… good riddance.
He’s still gazing down at me, though, I realize, through the golden fringes of his lashes, as if… measuring me. Or waiting for something.
“Such an omega thing to do,” he mutters eventually. “Typical. Organizing books by color.”
And… back to seeing red.
No, it’s not typical. It’s not simply about esthetics. He doesn’t know me, and it bothers me that he’s drawing conclusions. Alpha-splaining.
It’s… the way it looks. It bothers me when the colors are random. It makes me… afraid somehow. The lack of order. The lack symmetry. Of control.
It’s something that sometimes takes over my life. The need for beautiful symmetries. Sacred geometries. Equilibrium, when it sorely lacks in my own life.
But I have learned to control the compulsion. Mostly. Like I said, these days I’m out of sorts. It will pass.
I open my mouth to tell him to mind his own fucking business, professionalism be damned—and isn’t already too late for that, Sawyer?—when the door of the café dings and someone enters.
Someone who instantly has my entire and undivided attention, erasing the red tint from my vision and the urge to throttle a certain alpha from my mind.
She is here.
3
SAWYER
It’s the girl. That girl. Brinlee. Wild, blond hair in pigtails like a pixie, dark eyes like deep wells, and…
What the fuck?
Without thinking, I stride up to her and lift my hand to her face. “What the hell happened? You’re bleeding? Who did this to you?”
“It’s nothing. I hit my face against a backpack.” At what has to be an incredulous look on my face, she laughs softly. “I swear it’s true. A guy was wearing the backpack. I just happened to walk into his back.”
“You walked into a random guy’s back?” Her skin is so warm under my fingertips, so smooth, like fine silk. Her eyes are drawing me in, so dark and warm. I want to curl up inside her gaze.
“Oh no, he’s a friend.”
“A friend,” I repeat, heat spreading in my gut. Wait, am I jealous?
“A colleague.”
Should I believe her? I’ve seen signs of domestic violence before, and no excuse should ever convince anyone that the bruises were the result of falling or slamming into furniture by chance. Yet I don’t know her enough to tell if she’s telling the truth, or to ask again.
She leaves me no time to decide how to handle this, stepping back and away from me. My hand falls to my side, and the look in her eyes tells me she’s considering fleeing.
I have scared her. Dammit. She will run—again, like the last time I saw her, and it will be my own goddamn fault for coming on too strong and acting like a stalker of some sort.
“I should go,” she says as if on cue.
“No, please,” I whisper. “Please, stay. Let me make you a coffee. Flat white. Lots of milk, no sugar, right?”
Her dark brows arch. “You remember.”
