Page 42 of The Alpha and the Baker
“That steakhouse that opened up a couple of months back. Gregalios?”
“Oh,Greggilios. I’ve been wanting to go there. Just been slammed with deadlines lately.”
“It’s the post-holiday pickup,” Chris said. “Hits you every year.”
She let out a soft laugh, and they shared a look that was so full of love it almost felt like I was intruding. But the moment passed, as did the remaining minutes I had to wait out the clock. I hurried back to my cabin to change.
The restaurant wasn’t black tie, but it was nice, so I chose a cobalt-blue turtleneck that my mother had gotten me, some nice slacks, and a gold necklace with our pack’s emblem. It was a simple thing, passed down through generations. The metal circle had a beaded tree within it, its roots taking up a third of it. It wasn’t stunningly unique or anything, but it wasours, and that was what mattered to me.
From there, I hopped in my car and made the drive back into the city. Every minute seemed to take forever, yet not long enough. One part of me was anxious to get there, and the other half wanted to delay, delay,delay.
Anxiety was a hell of a thing.
When I arrived at the bakery, I pulled into what little space was left behind her van at the back, then got out of the car and went to the side door.
Should I have gotten her flowers? Or was that gauche now? I wasn’t sure, and suddenly I found myself wishing I had a massive bouquet to hand to her. Did I look like a cheapskate? Thoughtless?
I was so caught up in that spiral that I didn’t even have time to pull out my phone and text her that I had arrived before the side door opened.
My mind went blank.
Felicia.
She looked… She looked…
Beautiful.
The word didn’t even do her justice. She was always stunning, with her sweet smile and honey eyes, but now she looked ethereally gorgeous.
“Hey there,” she said softly, looking up at me through her thick lashes that looked even longer and darker than usual, giving her a sort of siren look. Was it makeup? Magic? Who was I to say? All I knew was that I wascaptivated.
She was dressed in a satiny, emerald-green dress that hugged parts of her perfectly, then hung in sort of artful folds across others. I wasn’t overly familiar with the style, but I liked it.
Oh, I liked it alot.
“Hey,” I murmured back, still taking the whole art of her in. She was taller than usual, thanks to the black heels that made her calves lookincredible.Then again, what part of Felicia wasn’t incredible? “You ready?” I asked, offering my arm.
“Sure am,” she said, grinning up at me. My eyes were drawn to how ruby-red her lips were. I loved the normal petal-pink shade she naturally had, but hey, I wasnotcomplaining about the switch-up.
The only downside was that it captured my attention so entirely that all I could think about was kissing her, or runningmy thumb along that perfectly scarlet lipstick and smearing it in a lovely mess.
“Is everything okay?” Felicia asked as she took my arm, her perfume filling my senses. Damn, somehow, she smelled ten times more incredible than usual, which I’d thought was impossible. But there was something that had changed about it that made my inner wolf want to bury his nose in her neck andbreathe.
“Everything’s perfect,” I said, mentally pulling myself together and walking her to the passenger side of my car. It wasn’t the communal truck our pack used for errands that required hauling, but a practical four-door that was nondescript and painted black. Some alphas had showy cars, and if that was what they wanted to spend their alpha stipend on, that was their business. But I had never been a car guy. I’d much rather shift into my wolf form and run as nature intended.
However, I couldn’t exactly take a human on a date like that, so having my own vehicle had its uses.
“Where are we going, by the way?” Felicia asked once we were both in the car and buckled up.
“Greggilios,” I asked, monitoring her scent closely since I couldn’t exactly watch her face while I was backing up. To my delight, her response was positive. While humans didn’t communicate with pheromones and scent quite like us shifters did, our noses were sensitive enough to pick up on quite a few variations in their mood. It also helped that we could generally hear if their heartbeat suddenly picked up for no reason.
“Oh! I read about that place,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ve been wanting to go since it opened, but it’s so hard to find time.”
“I’m glad to have helped us find that time. Hopefully it lives up to our expectations.”
“Fingers crossed!”
Once I was on the road, the conversation stalled a little, if only because my GPS tended to interrupt us every few sentences. I would have loved to have gone without it, but I wasn’t familiar with the area where the restaurant was. It was deep in the center of the upper-class part of the city, which was pretty much fairy territory through and through. It wasn’t like shifters weren’t allowed there, but we didn’t like to hang around the contract-wielding magical folk.
