“We would exchange information if our cars crashed. You know, for insurance purposes.”
My lips twitch, liking him despite myself. I open my mouth to tell him my name, but I’m not Juniper Harrington anymore. My parents couldn’t have made it any clearer if they’d tried that they want nothing to do with me. “June. I’d better go.”
“You take care now, June.”
He walks away, and I peer over my shoulder, confused he’s leaving when I’m almost positive he was flirting with me. I’m notsure what I’d expected, but I guess Pack Wells shaped my views and expectations of alphas in more ways than I realized.
I watch him climb into his green Mercedes and pull away from the sidewalk. Then I hurry into the laundromat to switch my laundry, shaking all thoughts of him out of my mind.
Chapter 19
June
“…prick, so I told him to shove it.” Feminine laughter bleeds through my far-too-thin apartment door from the hallway. “Yeah, I said it to his face. POS deserved all that and more. He’s lucky I didn’t staple his tiny dick to his desk.”
More laughter rings out.
Wincing, I put down my fork, no longer interested in my scrambled eggs, and not just because of that violent image.
As I abandon my barely edible scrambled eggs, I continue to listen to the woman outside. It’s the day after I did my laundry, and after a long, nervy, and anxious night, where I prayed nothing would bite me, I finally fell asleep at three a.m., unmolested by any tiny biting bugs.
“I’ll find another job. Maybe they’re hiring at the grocery store. That hotel, though?Neveragain. Not even if he begs again, and he was desperate enough to call begging me to come back, and you know how shit I am at cleaning.”
More feminine laughter rings out. Then a curse as keys jingle.
My mind seizes on the wordsjobanddesperate, and I’m up off my wobbly two-seater dining set in my tiny kitchenette, and hurrying to my door to fling it open.
An olive-skinned, dark-haired woman is unlocking her door while holding her cell phone against her ear. She peers over her shoulder and raises her eyebrow at me. “Problem?”
“Sorry for startling you,” I say, hovering in my doorway. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help but hear you say something about a hotel hiring?”
She gives me a long look and then says into the phone, “I’ll call you back, Beth.” She hangs up her phone and tucks it into her handbag, then turns to face me. “You don’t want to work at the hotel. The pay is shit, you’ll be called in constantly and made to stay hours later because they’re too cheap to hire more staff.”
“It’s a job, and I can’t afford to be picky.Please?” Desperation is bleeding from my pores. That’s how badly I wantandneed this job.
“You’ll regret it, mark my words. It’s the three-star one on Douglas Street. You know it?” she asks, and I shake my head. “I’ll write the address down for you. Ask for Manny. He’s the manager with the wandering hands.”
“Wandering hands?” I recall the alphas from the end-of-year Haven Academy ball.
“Changed your mind?” She doesn’t look surprised.
“No. I thought I’d left wandering hands behind. I don’t have stilettos anymore, so I’ll have to deal with him another way.”
She barks out a laugh, a dimple forming on her right cheek. “I’m Lucia Di Marco.”
“June. Thanks for the tip about the job.”
She snorts. “Trust me, I’m not doing you a favor.”
“Well, you’re helping me out. If you ever need a favor, let me know.”
“Let me put my bag down, and I’ll get that address for you.” She flashes me a grin, and as she heads into her apartment to write the address for me, I hunt for my sneakers so I can ask about the job.
“I can start right away,” I tell the hiring manager.
With Lucia’s warning fresh in my mind, I stay firmly on the other side of his desk. I’m too desperate for this job to let Manny’s wandering hands get in the way.
His lack of scent marks him out as a beta. He’s big, though not alpha big. Brown hair, a short brown beard, and intense blue eyes. He’s in a white shirt, navy blue pants, and a blue tie, like all the male staff in the hotel, except he has a small gold pin on his tie that must mark him out as a manager.
