Page 5 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

Something Sera had promised herself she’d become. Something she’d inched closer to when she’d gone in with her friends on this shop. Something she was going to have tobe, because she wasn’t about to let Sitwell & Associates take Ford’s gift to her.

Wesley Sitwell wasn’t sure what he’d expected Grandpa’s twenty-six-year-old “friend” to look like, but it wasn’t that girl. Serafina Conte. She was bustling around behind the counter under a sign that read Words Are Magic.

Her thick, dark, curly hair had sprung free from the ponytail at the small of her neck. The hair band had popped while he’d been watching her. He didn’t know why he was obsessed with her hair.

Exceptmaybehe did. His first crush had been Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, and Serafina Conte was giving him all the Hermione feels.

From a distance, her eyes were deep brown and she had thick eyebrows that furrowed as she ran from the counter to her back room and returned like a windup toy that his brother, Oz, had broken one of the legs off of when they were kids, spinning in a silly, constant circle.

But there was nothing silly about this woman. She wore a blouse probably more suited to a woman Grandpa’s age. It had a bow and puffy sleeves, and she’d paired it with faded jeans and some chunky-heeled platform boots. The jeans hugged her curves, showing off her near-perfect ass, which might have explained his grandfather’s obsession with her.

She had a slightly rounded face, and if she’d been wearing lipstick, she’d worried it off long before he’d entered the shop. Her face was earnest when she spoke to her customers. Still, Wes didn’t trust her.

Grandpa, who’d had the same friends for most of his life—namely his chess buddies Hamish and Ronald, though the latter had died last year—had suddenly developed a close association with this woman.

Wes wasn’t the type to stalk Reddit for conspiracies, but that didn’t mean he overlooked something this obvious. When a hottie started a friendship with a much older man, it raised a huge red flag. Not that Ford had been an easy man to influence, but to suddenly leave a small fortune in books to this woman...therehadto be more to it than met the eye.

Or he wanted there to be. Wes didn’t want to face the fact that he and Grandpa had fallen out. Wes had broken the partnership they’d formed when he’d left college and started his book repair business. The problem with Grandpa was that he refused to budge; everything always had to be his way. And Wes... Well, he was just as stubborn as Ford.

Ford had been the one to foster Wes’s own love of books, so Wes always believed he would inherit them. Books had been his way out of a troubled childhood. His mom left, taking Wes and his twin until his dad agreed to a divorce, nearly bankrupting both his dad and grandpa before returning Wes and his twin.

His dad hadn’t handled the situation well, and to say he hadn’t been father of the year was an understatement. Wes had always been the one least like him. Wes had his mom’s looks, and that had engendered...Hatredmight be too strong a word for what his dad felt when he’d looked into Wes’s blue eyes and watched as, over time, the white-blond hair Wes had been born with turned to a rich honey blond that matched his mother’s.

Grandpa had left a note specifying that a box of curated antique books and journals were to be given to Serafina Conte. His dad hadn’t really been bothered by Grandpa’s bequest for the sake of the books—the old man never understood Wes’s choice to follow in Ford’s footsteps. But his dad didn’t like the fact that the woman, any woman, might have manipulated Ford the way his ex-wife manipulated him. He’d agreed to Wes’s request to use the family letterhead to send her a letter insisting she return Grandpa’s books to them. The truth was most of the old books Grandpa had needed repair.

Which was why Wes was here.

He was the one Ford had trained and he had always assumed Grandpa would give the books to him. Wes had hoped repairing the books would fix the damage he’d done when he’d told Grandpa he was forging his own path.

But it hadn’t.

Instead, Serafina Conte, who probably thought the books were worth money, like his dad did, had gotten them. That was a little too sus. Wes wasn’t leaving Birch Lake until he had the books back. Then he’d fix them. He might suck at relationships, but he was good at repairing broken things.

Who the hell was she? And why the fuck had Grandpa left the books to her?

“Sorry, folks. That’s all the journals I can make for today. Come back tomorrow and I’ll have more for you.”

She stood on a step stool near the counter, and though there were some rumbles of disappointment, most of the customers didn’t seem too upset to have to leave. As the shop emptied, Wes stayed to the side of the doorway.

The shop was lined with books, some newer editions but mostly secondhand titles. Nothing on the shelves had the same pedigree as the books his grandfather had left her. But she did have a few titles that would sell for a hefty price at the online auction house he ran as a sideline to make ends meet. Repairing old books was a specialist skill, but it didn’t exactly rake in the big bucks.

“Can I help you find what you’re looking for?” she asked, coming up next to him.

Up close, her eyes weren’t brown but more of a greenish hazel. Her hair looked like every sex dream he’d had back in the day, and her mouth... Fuck him, he couldn’t stop staring at it.

She reached up, pulling her hair back, which made his eyes drop to her chest and the way her shirt pulled tight across her breasts. It wasn’t just her ass that was perfect.

“So?” she asked.

“I believe I’ve found what I’m looking for.”

“Those are great books and a bit of a steal,” she said with a playful grin that went straight to his dick.

“They definitely are, but I’m not here for the books, Serafina Conte. I’m here for you.”

“For me?” she asked, a bit startled. Then her eyes narrowed. “Sitwell?”

“Indeed. Expecting me?”

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