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“Boo!” Billie protested.
Hana helped them sit up. “Your alpha has work to do. You can join him in his office, or you can stay here with me.”
I held my breath as Billie decided. I wasn’t quite sure which choice I would’ve preferred them to make. A meal in Hana's lap, getting teased until they hit their breaking point, or going beneath my desk to tease me until I hit mine.
“That choice is too hard,” said Billie.
I looked at Jasper. “What's your vote, omega? Do you want to watch our beta suffer or imagine it?”
Jasper swallowed hard. “I think we all know I’m a visual person.”
Hana grinned. “Then it's settled. Billie, you’re with me, and Tony can get back to his extremely boring work and think about all the fun we’re having down here.”
“I have chairs in my office,” I said to Hana, “if you feel like torturing us all at once.”
Sharp mint and soothing matcha filled my senses. Hana growled softly and hooked her fingertips in my shirt. “If you make that kind of offer, you had better be prepared for me to accept it.”
I nudged Billie off of my lap and stood. “I’m always prepared for that. You know where to find me.”
I slipped out of the kitchen with my coffee and sticky bun and retreated up the stairs to my office, my body humming with anticipation.
9
NICKY
“Heythere,mylily.”
That voice. Thatname.
My jaw snapped tight and a cold sweat broke over my skin. I looked over the edge of my desk to see my ex-fiance Alphonse standing there with the same slicked back dark hair, neat suit, and smarmy smile I remembered.
“I thought you were in Tokyo.” The words jumped out before I could process that I should have greeted him first.
His brow furrowed. “Iwas. You were supposed to be, too. In any case, I just moved back.”
I hadn’t handled our breakup particularly smoothly. He’d been set to move to Tokyo for work to help them establish a new office, and I was supposed to have gone with him. I hadn’t wanted to move, but he’d worn me down into agreeing. Every time I tried to bring up that I didn’t want to go, it ended in an argument. So, instead of following him, I had used the opportunity of my broken lease to get a new apartment, change my number, delete my social media, and just pretend that none of it had ever happened for as long as possible.
I had never wanted to marry him, either. He’d done a public proposal, and I’d felt so awkward refusing that I’d said yes with the intention of refusing in private, but then he’d gone and announced the engagement online barely five minutes later.
Mom had been so happy…
I’d mailed the ring to his office and gone straight to my parents place to delete his contact off their phones and block his number. My brothers hadn’t needed that step and blocked him themselves. Mom was heartbroken over the failed engagement, and I knew that if Alphonse phoned her, she would answer, so I’d used her lack of tech skills against her.
Sure, disappearing into the night wasn’t the best way to handle it, but I didn’t know what else to do to slam on the brakes when a life I didn’t want was careening toward me.
I swallowed back the bile that rose in my throat. “What brings you to the library in the middle of the night?”
“I ran into your mom at the grocery store, and she told me about your new gig here. She was so happy to see me.”
I shivered. How the hell do I have a calm conversation with someone after everything that had passed between us?
“Are you doing well?” I asked, struggling for anything else to say.
“Well enough. I’ll be even better when you agree to go out with me again. How about breakfast when you’re done working?”
“Oh, um, actually I already have a date for breakfast.”
I don’t think he could’ve looked any more surprised than if I had pulled out a fish and slapped him in the face with it.
