Page 44 of Violet

It’s him.

I don’t think; I just walk towards him. “Stephan?”

He turns, and my knees nearly buckle. The scruff’s still there, and he looks so good. Handsome in this light. Better than the pictures I looked at last night when I’d searched him on my phone. He hadn’t been lying about his filmography. Or about his reputation as a bit of a wild card in Emporia. But those things made him feel more like a dream. Here, he looks real. Tangible.

I smile, but he doesn’t return it. He looks up and down the boardwalk promenade and then grabs me, hauling me into the shadows of the boathouse.

“What are you doing!” I hiss. My head spins. All I can smell is him, and his heat becomes a part of me.

“Shhh!”

He’s close, way too close, and everything throbs in time with my heart.

“We’re everywhere on social media.” I breathe the words. “If we’re seen in here alone?—”

“I know.” His gaze drops to my hair ribbon still wrapped around my wrist since last night, and a small smile lifts his lips. “I wasn’t supposed to be part of the Season, but the fucking Monarch wants to torture me.”

I swallow. I want to touch him. “You could leave.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated. I’m here for the summer and apparently now on the fucking market.”

“It can’t be that bad. You could find a mate…”

He laughs softly and misery streaks through me. “Not my style. I like my independence.”

My lungs twist. “Oh…”

Stephan captures my chin with his fingers as he tips my face to his. “You sound disappointed, Princess.”

Oh god, I start melting, and thinking is beyond difficult.

“I’m not,” I say, trying to seem aloof. I shake off his hold on my face. “I have a line of Alphas interested in me now. All because of the ball.”

His eyebrows rise. “Oh really?”

“You said it yourself, you’re famous, and that elevates me,” I say. “Because of our dance, I now have my pick of all of Sabine.”

I’m exaggerating, but his comment about not wanting a mate wounded me and I’m not sure why. Maybe because allthese secret touches and that kiss… It means it meant nothing.

“The problem for you is that the girls will hate me and want you more. You won’t be able to escape the swarms of Omegas. Not to mention that if the Monarch has her way, which she almost always does, you’ll be mated by the end of the summer, whether you like it or not.”

His expression falls. He knows I’m right.

Silence stretches between us, and I debate about leaving. I’ve already been gone too long—Mari and Rue will realize I’m not on the boardwalk anymore and come looking.

“We could help each other,” he says suddenly. “Team up in a way.”

I look at him. “Team up? How?”

“I don’t want a mate—that’s obvious—and the only way for it to stay that way is for me to pretend to pursue you. Like you are the only one I have eyes for. I’ll be smitten. Lovestruck. And if my heart is set on you, the other Omegas will step off.”

“An act…”

He nods. “It’ll make you desirable to every one of Sabine’s Alphas. Even the most untouchable ones,” he says.

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