I tip the shell upright and let it spin before pointing out, “You’re angry.”
He blinks—slowly—then looks at me, like he had just remembered I’m here. “I’m not angry.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” I swirl the wine in my glass, watching it catch the candlelight. “I thought you’d at least order the crab cakes, considering you spent your whole childhood eating them here.”
He doesn’t rise to the bait. Just folds his arms and watches the window, but this time, I know it’s so he doesn’t have to look at me. “We need to talk about today.”
There it is—the moment I’ve been dreading since Cole handed me that tasty bun. Zane only ever says “we need to talk” when he’s about to tell me I’ve done something reckless, or humiliating—or both.
Which have I accomplished today?
“Go on, then.” I force myself to hold his gaze. “Tell me what I did wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, almost instantly. Which is a lie, but I let it slide because he’s working up to something. He waits a beat, then says, “I don’t think you should see Cole and Lucas again.”
I laugh, not because it’s funny, but because I can’t believe how predictably paternalistic he is. “Why? Because they’re both alphas?”
The word lands between us with a heavy, embarrassingthud. There’s no need to lower my voice—the restaurant is empty apart from a trio of pensioners, who are too busy dissecting a lobster to notice us. Still, I feel the weight of it: alpha. There’s a time and a place for these things, and Zane has always been very specific about not discussing them in public.
“You know exactly why.” His voice is gravel, low and steady. “Your father would be?—”
“My father’s not here,” I cut in, sharper than intended. “And even if he were, he’d have to accept that I’m not his property.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I lean back, folding my arms. “Then what did you mean?”
He’s silent for a while. Our food arrives: the steak, rare and perfectly symmetrical, and a linguine studded with clams for me. The waitress, a teenager with pink braids and blue nails, is careful not to interrupt our standoff. She vanishes as quickly as she appeared.
“I’m responsible for your safety,” Zane says finally, as if that explains everything. “And getting involved with them?—”
“Thembeing Cole and Lucas, one of whom you grew up with, both of whom are the least dangerous people I’ve ever metandare alphas.”
He stares me down. “It doesn’t matter. You’re only here for the summer. You start something with them, it’ll end with someone getting hurt. That’s how these things always go.”
As opposed to simply yearning for several years while seeing each other every single day?
I hate that Zane says it like he knows. “That’s not your call to make. I’m an adult, and I’m allowed to make bad decisions if I want to.”
He’s still, absolutely still. I can smell the flint in his scent, sharper than usual, like the spark right before a fire. “You’re not making a bad decision,” he says. “You’re making an impossible one.”
I poke at my pasta, but I’m not hungry anymore. “You sound jealous.”
He recoils, just slightly. “I’m not.”
I look at him over the rim of my glass. “Aren’t you?”
His mouth opens for a few seconds in which I think maybe he’ll admit it. But then he shuts it again as his eyes flicker through several emotions. Then he blinks, all of it tamped down in only way he can do.
So fast, I wonder if I hallucinated it.
“You’re my responsibility,” he says, slow and deliberate. “And my friend. I don’t want to see you hurt. Not by anyone. Least of all by people who should know better.”
I should let it go. The thing is, I want to believe him, but there’s an edge to his voice that’s always there when the subject is me and other alphas. He’s never been one to act on jealousy, but it simmers, beneath the discipline. The old rules, hardwired into both of us.
I set my fork down. “I’m not going to promise anything.”
He leans in and lowers his voice. “Helena. Please.”
