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Ash rattles his glass. “Even I can’t go through this many cherries that fast.”
“I’m good,” I say, and she returns to the service well.
I turn back to Ash. “You make it sound almost altruistic.”
He laughs. “Nobody’s a saint here. But it’s better than letting people drown. Most of us, if we’re lucky, get to tread water. Rowan teaches people to swim.”
I turn Ash’s words over, trying to fit them into the framework of my family’s operations. Favors instead of debts. Community support instead of leverage.
The math doesn’t align with a crew preparing for war. It is… sustainable, not expansionist.
Ash studies me for a moment. “You seem all right, Lee. I hope you find what you came here for.”
Startled, I straighten. “Excuse me?”
His brow furrows. “You’re hoping to become a regular, right?”
“Oh, right.” I try to relax. “If I keep coming back, it will happen.”
I stare at my laptop screen, but the file I started is still blank.
Ash finishes his Shirley Temple in three long slurps, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and slides off the stool.
On his way out, he lifts two fingers in acknowledgment, and for a second, I consider stopping him to ask about the job he mentioned.
But I don’t, and he disappears into the back rooms. My fingers tighten around my glass. Another lead, gone. And I let him just walk away.
Petra catches my attention while wiping down the far end of the counter. “You want food?”
I shake my head. “Just drinks.”
She arches a brow, then lets it go with a shrug. “Don’t get so sloshed you can’t walk out of here on your own.”
I huff out a laugh. “Haven’t hit that point since I was a teenager.”
Orien emerges from the back rooms and halts near the far register, his attention landing on me immediately. I’d skipped Thursday again, and I wasn’t sure if he would be here this early.
A jolt goes through me, stomach dropping as if I missed a stair, and the back of my neck goes hot. I keep my attention on the laptop screen, the cursor blinking in the blank document, and reach for my drink with a hand I will to stay steady.
Petra scoots closer. “Now there’s someone who will give you an ego boost.”
My head whips toward her. “What?”
She jerks her chin toward Orien. “He’s never looked at anyone like that. You’ve made him desperate.”
The words crackle under my skin, and I take a slow sip of the whiskey sour before I set it down with care. “You think? He’s been playing it cool.”
“Trust me.” She winks. “The man is down, bad.”
My heart starts racing. I can’t work like this, can’t function at peak performance when the Alpha keeps triggering these reactions from my body. I need to prove that this is just a fantasy, that the reality will be just as disappointing as it’s always turned out to be in the past.
“You better not be setting me up,” I whisper as I close my laptop and stuff it back into my bag.
Orien tracks my every move as I draw the strap over my shoulder, slide from my stool, and walk toward him without rushing.
He doesn’t move until I’m close enough to see the scar on the bridge of his nose and the micro-freckle by his right temple that didn’t show up in any of the surveillance photos.
His chest rises and falls, inhaling my pheromones, as he takes in my outfit and the sparkly clip that holds back my black hair.
