Page 25 of The Alpha's Fake Mate
I could show you the world you said you will never see.
I could do that as a friend.
But we are not yet friends. Could we be?
Orion
When I hitsend,I shut my eyes as if I’d done a bad thing.
Would Holland think I was propositioning him? I wasn’t. It was more an urge to do the right thing. Help him. Save him. Why not the others? I couldn’t say, except, again, I will admit he stood out to me. He challenged roles: mine, his. He made me feel a wind in my solar plexus.
I didn’t know him. I’d only seen him twice, briefly, that one day. We’d exchanged only a few tense emails.
What was the matter with me?
I couldn’t save every Omega. But Holland stood in my mind like a warrior who’d broken into my private rooms and refused to leave.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
*
The sun set in bright pink and orange stripes out my office window. Sometimes the twilight made me feel like I was drowning. When I was a kid, I remember a restlessness overcoming me at twilight, as if I were being touched by a dozen ghosts.
Because I’d decided to keep Zilly’s, I now had a part time job. I spent the afternoon online approving orders, reading emails and messages pertaining to Zilly’s. I was learning the ropes.
Most of the work to maintain the farm took care of itself, but as the owner I had to approve things. I had to okay daily reports and financial documents.
There was a lot to learn.
As I got up to stretch, my email dinged. Again.
I almost walked away, thinking I’d get some dinner and return to it all in the morning, but I glanced down.
Holland’s address winked at me.
I sat down to read.
Orion
I cannot believe you would say those things. Offer me the world, like dangling a carrot in front of a horse’s face with a plan to take it away.
And you did it so poorly, as if it means nothing.
How dare you?
We are not friends.
I would never trust you even if you said we were.
Where does that leave us?
Holland
I let my breath out fast.
“Wow,” I said to my empty office.
To be perfectly honest, did I expect him to receive my thoughts with open arms? Did I ever think he’d allow me to take him away from the farm? I was a stranger. I was no one to him.
