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“May I continue?”

“This is a ledger of household items,” he whined. “Thank God I live in a time where I can do all this shit on my phone.”

I chuckled.

“So this guy Critt was no good, but you went to other gatherings, right?”

“Critt is wonderful, simply not for me.” I made sure he understood. “And yes, I did in fact attend other gatherings.”

“And?”

But after another gathering, and another, party after party, appearances and outings, being escorted here and there… I was so bored.

“I can tell you all about bored,” he said, showing me a bundle of letters tied with a ribbon that were all from Mrs. Wellington’s mother. Many concerned recipes for fish or beef or pork. “Kill me now. Seriously.”

One evening, I was visiting Linden and Wade and Wade was waiting to bid on something on an auction site, sitting in front of his computer, looking as filled with ennui as Bing was at the moment. When I glanced over his shoulder at what he was looking at, I said no.

“No?” Wade had asked, turning to me.

“Wade, that cannot possibly be a copy of Pride and Prejudice from 1822, I don’t care where the seller says they found it or where it was kept. Look at the binding.”

“I am.”

“And?’

“It looks fine to me.”

“Absolutely not,” I assured him.

“You’re saying it’s a fake?”

“Most certainly,” I scoffed. “And look at those supposed letters of provenance. Are you kidding? That’s terrible.”

I went to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist.

“You can tell from a glance that the letters of provenance are no good?”

“Yes.”

“Put on your coat. You’re coming to the station with me.”

With my help, a man who had been luring people into buying fraudulent copies of rare books was caught. I even got to be placed on a list of experts by the police department. It was very exciting, and over time, after going to school and graduating, then getting my master’s, I realized something terrible. I didn’t care about finding an alpha anymore. What I had found in myself was much better.

“So you don’t want to be a homemaker anymore?”

“I do not.”

“That’s good. I’m glad you’re not doing that. Then I’d be stuck with Marc, who would have killed me by now, and I’d never get to see your place. I wanna see it, because I’ll bet you my five-thousand-square-foot apartment down near the loop is way better.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

The door opened then, and our consignment director, Madeline Breyer, came in with our auction coordinator, Wynton Coe, and both stood there looking at us.

“Hi,” I said after a moment.

“Since we have the auction of the Gould letters this week,” Wynton finally said with a frustrated huff, “and because Vanessa Howard quit this morning to go work at Ellerby’s⁠—”

“No,” I gasped.