Oh god. He thought I was hitting on him. He thought I was saying something suggestive.
Abort. Abort.
“I mean, your number,” I blurted. “For professional reasons. Strictly professional. So I can let you know when the book shows up.”
His face brightenedinstantly.
“Yes. That’s good,” he said.
He reached into his pocket and handed me his phone.
Just… handed to me.
“Can you find my number?” he asked. “I keep forgetting it.”
I stared at the phone. It wasn’t locked. In fact, it had absolutely nothing on it.
No password. No apps. No browser. No email. Only calling and texting.
Did this man live in a monastery or something?
I tapped through to the settings and located his number. “Here,” I said, pulling a pen from my pocket and writing it on the sticky pad I kept in my pocket.
When I handed the phone back, he reached for it.
And took my hand with it.
Just a gentle wrap of his fingers around mine, but the warmth of him seeped into me.
“Thank you,” he said with complete sincerity. “For your help. I hope I see you again.”
My chest constricted. His background image flashed across the screen before it dimmed. A woman and a man stood together, smiling at the camera, their arms around each other. Family. Loved ones. A piece of his world I would never know.
I cleared my throat. “For the book.”
“For the book,” he agreed.
He stepped back, giving me space again. My pulse kept its unreasonable pace.
Right. I needed to find that book. Immediately.
I wasn’t letting the most attractive, strangely bilingual, devastatingly earnest man I had ever met walk out of here empty-handed.
And some wild, reckless part of me wanted to be the reason he walked back in.
My apartment welcomed me with the quiet I craved every moment of the day.
Silence without judgment, which was the best kind of silence.
The hallway light cast a soft, golden glow over the open space, which always settled my pulse. The exposed brick caught the evening shadows in clean lines.
My bookshelves stood along the far wall, arranged in a system only I understood and didn’t need to defend.
The kitchen was small but perfect—its layout made cooking feel manageable even when my brain refused to cooperate. Through the sliding door, the balcony overlooked the Hudson, its lights stretching out in the distance like a long, steady horizon.
I set my keys in the bowl by the door and drew in a deep inhale of peace. I really did love it here. Loving a place was safer than loving people.
My mind dragged me back to the tall man in thelibrary.
