Page 24 of The Florist and Her Alphas

I carefully place the flower crown onto my nightstand.

I lie down on my bed without undressing.

The sheets are cool against my skin. The streetlight casts amber shadows across the ceiling.

I press my fingertips, very gently, to my mouth, smiling. And I relive the whole day again, replaying and remembering every little moment I had with Julian.

Six

EZRA

It’s an early day. I’m already at my desk by 4:15 am. For some reason, I could hardly sleep for the past couple of nights ever since the meeting with Liana, the florist. We still haven’t heard from her, and I’m starting to doubt she’ll ever take our offer for her shop.

My office is glass on all three sides, and I watch the dawn unfold while sipping my coffee.

Three contracts come through in the first forty minutes. I approve them with three keystrokes. A fourth proposal from a retail development group in Queens arrives at 5:12. I read the first paragraph, scroll to the bottom, and kill it without comment. A venture capital firm in Boston sends a request for a meeting next week. I type a single word into the reply field: No. I hit send.

My hand finds the coffee cup again. Lifts it. Puts it down.

I glance at the security feed on my third monitor out of habit. The lobby is empty. The garage shows three cars parked in their assigned spots. The penthouse entrance camera scrolls through the night’s footage at triple speed until I see something odd.

It’s Julian walking through the entrance at 11:47 PM.

I pause the feed. Rewind. Play at normal speed.

He is moving slowly. Unusually slowly for Julian, who walks like he is perpetually late for something. His shoulders are loose. His head is slightly down. In his right hand, clutched between his fingers, is something pale and slender.

I zoom in. The image pixelates, then comes together.

A single flower.

I stare at it. Something cold settles in my stomach. I know, with the bone-deep certainty that this is about the flower shop. About her. I close the footage and stare at my coffee for a long time.

The steam has stopped. The ceramic is cool.

I stand. My chair rolls back on its casters and hits the glass wall with a soft thud as I determinedly make my way over to Julian’s door. His door is literally twenty steps down the hallway from mine.

I knock hard. Three sharp raps that would wake the dead.

The door opens.

Julian stands there, looking as if he has been dragged backward through a hedge. His dark hair is damp, pushed back from his forehead. He is wearing pajama pants and a gray shirt pulled on crooked, one sleeve riding higher than the other. Behind him, Pepper sits on the desk in a half-asleep slump, one yellow eye cracked open.

“Asshole,” Pepper says slowly.

I do not look at the bird. “Good morning.”

Julian leans against the door frame. His eyes are bloodshot. “It’s five-thirty in the morning.”

“You came home at 11:47 last night,” I growl, my voice flat. “With a flower in your hand.”

Julian’s face goes still. “You were watching me?”

“Where were you?”

“It’s none of your business where I was.”

I step past him into the room without waiting for an invitation. Julian exhales hard through his nose but steps aside, letting me in.