Page 10 of How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates

Okay: who thefuckdoes he think he is?

He hasn’t seen me in four years—four years—and now he’s here with that same judgmental face and unjustified alpha arrogance, talking about ‘telling me’and ‘letting me’as though he has any right or say in anything I do.

I bite back the heat rising in my throat. “Whateverwhatis?”

“This whole performance,” he gestures vaguely at me. “The drama. The chaos. You know; the part where you keyed my car and paid a gardener to mow the wordassholeinto my front lawn.”

“That was averywell-executed mow,” I mutter.

He doesn’t even blink. “You glitter-bombed my steering wheel.”

“It was festive. And eco-friendly.”

“You superglued a scented candle into my mailbox.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Youlovedthat scent.”

His expression turns dark as he sighs through his nostrils. “Cam doesn’t need to get caught in your emotional fallout.”

I bristle. “Cam is agrown man. If he wants to get to know me, that’shischoice.”

“This isn’t about dating, and we both know it,” Wes snaps. “You don’t date. Youdetonate.”

My spine straightens. “That’s rich, coming from the alpha who went into ghost-mode after scenting me all through my heat.”

I can hear the grind of enamel as his jaw tenses. “It. Wasn’t. Working.”

“Yeah?” I sneer. “Well, if that’s really how you felt, you nevertoldme.”

“I didn’t owe you a bond,” he scoffs. “We weren’tthatserious.”

Something cracks, and I laugh—loud and sharp and not evencloseto okay.

A few people glance over. Whatever. Let them.

Let the whole damn place watch the implosion.

“Not that serious?” I spit. “Wes, you nearly claimedme.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it mattered. You told me Ismelled like home.”

He exhales as thoughI’mthe one who’s exhausting. “I’m not here to rehash it,” he mutters.

“Right,” I say, folding my arms and trying not to flinch as his gaze drops briefly to the curve of my throat. “You’re just here to give me orders. So veryalphaof you.”

His nostrils flare. He’s scenting,hard.Not that he’ll get anything through the blockers I’m wearing along with the spray, but the way his jaw tenses tells me he’s trying.

Trying and failing and furious about it.

“I’m telling you to walk away,” he continues, his teeth clenched. “You’re not right for this.”

I stare at him. And I meanreallystare—at the way his hands are fisted under the table, at the rigid tension in his shoulders, at the way his pupils have started to dilate just from sitting across from me.

It’d be flattering if it wasn’t infuriating. Even just slightly better if it didn’t make my thighs clench.

“Let me get this straight,” I say. “You ghost me after scent-marking me so thoroughly I needed two showers and a salt scrub to be able to be seen in public. I retaliate like any self-respecting omega with rage issues and access to the internet. And now you think you get to play gatekeeper and tell me what to do?”

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