She puts the coffee down and carefully takes the book from my hands. “Respect the book, Rome. We don’t crack spines. We don’t dog-ear pages. We treat them like shelf trophies. They’re to be read and loved and gently handled.”
I watch as she carefully closes the pages, brushes her hand across the cover, and lovingly sits it back down next to the register.
“Uh... Okay.” I don’t tell her, her crazy is showing, a little scared she’d throw the damn coffee at my face. Her brand of crazy must work for Lucky, and that’s all that matters, I guess. “That’s the book though, right?”
With narrowed eyes, she sighs like dealing with me is exhausting her. “Haven’t you started reading it yet?”
“I have.” I actually like it too. Not that I’m telling her that. “But I’m reading it on my iPad. I downloaded that Kindle app the other day,” I admit sheepishly. “And I swear to Christ, Lexie, if anyone in book club leaks this shit to the press, I’ll kill them.”
“Sure you will, Titan.” Her smile goes from kinda crazy back to normal as she slides the coffee across the counter and pushes a napkin with another cake bite next to it. “Go get the hardbackfrom Dillan. It’s your first book club book. You need a shelf trophy.”
Oh, you can bet Dillan’s sweet ass, I’m going to Hopeless Romantics next.
“That sounds like a great idea, Lex. Thanks. See you later.”
Dillan
My stomach sinks, and hours-old coffee churns in its depths as I read the last line of my email... again. Because apparently, I’m a masochist, and once wasn’t enough.
Damn it.
I’ve got less than two months left.
How did I get here? Seems to be a recurring question lately. One I don’t have an answer to. One that scares me to death.
I look up from my email as the bell chimes above the shop door, and my breath catches in my throat. Seriously? I don’t even utter the word out loud, and yet I can still hear the pouty little whining sound in the way I think it.
Just when I thought this morning couldn’t get worse, in walks the devil himself. Wearing jeans that cost more than my favorite special-edition hardbacks—the ones with sprayed edges, gorgeous end pages, and pretty ribbon foiling—paired with a gray Crucible hoodie with the logo stretching around his enormous bicep, and the combination creates such a delicious sight. And that’s before the backward hat. That damn hat is like the cherry on top of a decadent sundae. Shame the ice cream is rancid.
“Psycho.” I smile sweetly as I greet him.
“Princess.” He smiles back with that big fat stupid smile of his, and just like that, my earlier email is forgotten, and I focus all my energy on the giant ass in front of me. The one moving farther inside my shop.
“Why are you here, Rome?” My pulse pounds in my ears like it does whenever he’s near, blocking out common sense but unfortunately never dulling the overwhelming anger.
He walks around Hopeless Romantics, like it’s his first time in my shop, and I groan when I realize it is. I still hate him, but now I want to impress him too, and that pisses me off.
And like he can read my damn mind, he smiles at the beautiful white custom shelves filled with colorful romance novels. “This is an impressive amount of books, Ryan.”
If it were anyone else, I’d thank them.
But it’s not anyone.
It’s him.
And what did he expect from a romance bookstore?
The shelves are filled with every genre of romance book from contemporary to sports to billionaire to paranormal, and one of my favorites, shifter. I watch in silence as Rome looks at each section, taking it in with a cocky smirk, and realize I’m too pissed he’s in my space to even lash out.
But when he stops in front of the pink shelves along the back wall of the shop... the one filled with every stunning special-edition sprayed-edge romantasy book I could get my hands on to sell... the shelf I keep stocked withallthe romantasy books, my heart sinks.
I hold my breath as he continues to ignore me and fingers the spines ofNew York Timesbestsellers, a few books that have been optioned for movies, and one that is a literal international phenomenon.
He doesn’t stop on any of them though.
That would be too easy, and this man is anything but easy.
No... he waits to stop until he finds the exact one he’s looking for.
