Page 16 of Imperial: The Corvidae Family
“You’re a lifesaver! I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I damn sure know what I would do without you…
She would change her mind again by tomorrow, but for now, it was handled. After finishing my call, I pulled up my camera app and snapped a quick photo of the roses to place on my page and story.
I decided to keep the caption simple and allusive.
Unexpected, but beautiful.
I posted it before I could overthink the decision, then set my phone down and got to work. It wasn’t until twenty minutes later that I checked my notifications because I needed to know if hehad seen the post and my stomach flipped and tensed. A smile spread across my face.
A like and a comment from the same mystery follower.
@BLKVOID: Always expect the unexpected.
I clicked onto his profile and went to his page. Nothing new but this time something caught my eye about one of them. On the tattooed hand resting against a steering wheel one stood out. A black rose that I noticed when he was sitting across from me holding his beer at Rockin Ramen. My stomach tensed. I didn’t need confirmation by way of that cocky smile or his handsome face. The tattoos were a dead giveaway.
I knew it.
Emir.
I locked my phone because he was already too deep in my head and I wasn’t sure I wanted him out.
A rich,floral scent filled the air with hints of rose and lavender from the fresh blooms stacked in neat, color-coordinated arrangements while I walked through Perfect Pick. It was the most exclusive flower shop in the city where the wealthy Crescent Falls elite sent their assistants to spend shit loads of money on bouquets for the people they loved.
I had been here enough times to know my way around, but today, I was distracted, scrolling through my phone, checking a list of floral options while balancing a call with Rachelle. There was also the memory of the black roses tugging at my brain which came from this very shop and were currently on my desk. That had me grinning more than necessary.
“So you’re saying she wants flowers imported from Japan so that she has something ‘not too common’?” Rachelle’s voicewas laced with amusement. “The people you work with are exhausting.”
I sighed, trailing my fingers over a cluster of soft petals. “Pretty much and they are. The florist says they can get them in, but they’ll have to be expressed shipped. They’re also coming from California and not Japan but I’m not telling her that.”
I smirked. If the client wanted to think the flowers were more exclusive as an import, that was fine but they were the same damn thing that I could get stateside, just at a better price.
“It’s not like she would know?”
“She damn sure wouldn’t.” I adjusted my AirPod while weaving through the displays with my eyes still on my screen. “I swear, I love my job, but some of these requests make me want to chop these damn people in the?—”
I turned a corner, not watching where I was going, and walked straight into a solid, warm chest. Large tattooed hands gripped my waist, steadying me, and a clean spicy scent and something unmistakably familiar wrapped around me before I could process the collision.
I knew that scent. I knew those hands and I damn sure knew that presence. I lifted my head and everything settled.
His grip lingered for a second longer than necessary with his fingers flexing lightly against my waist before he released me. A smirk was already in place, arrogant and entirely too sexy.
“Careful, beautiful. Running into me might become a dangerous habit for you.”
My brain was still playing catch-up, cataloging the way he looked this close to me in a confined space. Jeans, a fitted black T-shirt that stretched over his broad shoulders, and that ever-present Cuban link chain sitting against the smooth, rich, brown of his skin. His cut was fresh and beard was moisturized.
This man was too fucking handsome for his own good and what made things worse was he knew it. I groaned internally forbeing temporarily stuck on stupid and brought the focus back to my phone, only half-aware that Rachelle was still talking.
“Baylyn? You good?”
I narrowed my eyes which were still locked on the man who had invaded my space like he belonged there and frowned.
“I’ll call you back,” I muttered before hanging up.
“You’re officially stalking me,” I said, slipping my phone into my purse.
He laughed lightly. “You’re the one who walked into me, Baylyn. Should I be worried?”
