Page 4 of The Billionaire Alpha's Surprise Baby

“No. I wasn’t looking where I was going, and —”

“Miss!” An angry little man in a hideous argyle sweater comes storming up to my girl, and I have to resist the urge to body-check him for getting too close to her. “Is that my drink?”

Ava’s bottom lip wobbles, and a low snarl rumbles up my throat. My wolf hates seeing her upset, and he’s ready to rip this guy apart.

“I-I’ll make you another one right away,” she stammers, dropping her gaze as she blinks back tears.

My heart aches for her, and my wolf’s growls intensify.

“Ugh. Forget it,” the man snaps. “The incompetence in this place —”

“Excuse me,” comes another voice — a high-pitched female one. “We’ve been waiting forever.”

I whip around to see two tween girls standing at the counter, glaring at Ava. I can hear my girl’s heart rate ratcheting up a notch — sense her overwhelming panic and embarrassment — and something inside me snaps.

“Why don’t you fuck the fuck off?” I growl at the man in the ugly argyle sweater.

The man blinks at me, and I can see his furious little mind working to make sense of what just happened. He isn’t used to being spoken to like that.

See, there are two types of people in Aspen — people with money and people with fuck-you money. This guy might be loaded — loaded enough to make him accustomed to being an asshole — but he doesn’t have my net worth.

I’m talking lose-nine-mil-in-a-poker-game kind of money.

Private-island-in-the-Bahamas money.

Lighting-cars-on-fire-for-fun money.

The man’s face scrunches in an expression that says he’s about to let me have it, but then he studies my face some more. He’s trying to decide if he recognizes me.

I’m sure he does, but I got so shit-house wasted last night that I’m probably giving more crashed-daddy’s-yacht vibes than billionaire-oil-money vibes this morning.

“You heard me,” I say, louder this time. “Fuck — off.”

The man jerks his head back and blinks at me, and I see Ava straighten up ever so slightly. Her bottom lip is still trembling, but my flagrant rudeness seems to have given her the time she needed to pull herself together.

“Can you make it or not?” whines one of the annoying tweens, brandishing a bejeweled smartphone.

“Shouldn’t you two be in school?” I yell, causing the girls to look around in embarrassment.

“It’s spring break,” the one with the phone mumbles.

“Then get back to daycare,” I snarl.

The girls exchange an incredulous look, and I can see the two of them making the same mental calculations as the little man in the sweater.

If I were anyone else, they’d probably give me some middle-school mean girl shit right back, but even humans can sense the powerful alpha-wolf vibes I’m putting off, and it’s making them uneasy.

Finally, the two roll their eyes and slouch out of the café, and I hear a tiny sigh escape Ava.

“I’m Garrett,” I say, redirecting my attention to the gorgeous creature in front of me.

“I’m really sorry about your shirt,” she bursts out, her cheeks flushing the most adorable shade of pink.

I scrunch up one eye, which does something to relieve my pounding headache. “That’s an unusual name.”

Her eyes dart back and forth in confusion, and then she breaks into a smile that hits me like a punch to the chest. A feeling like warm sunshine floods my insides, and I swear that if this feeling were some drug I could do lines of, I’d be an honest-to-god junkie.

“Ava.” She chokes out her name with a laugh.

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