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She repacked her bag quickly and brushed away Aho’s offer to help.

Karn placed his own items down. Ivy noticed he also had a bottle of champagne. He had great taste in alcohol. Whenever they’d been out, he’d always ordered expensive wine. This alien knew how to spend money almost as fast as she did.

“Are you sharing that with someone special?” Ivy nodded at the champagne.

“I might if you’re nice to me.”

Ivy gestured to her own bottle. “I buy my own champagne.”

Karn smiled. “I like that. You’re sure of yourself. Confident. Those are attractive qualities to possess.”

“I’ll be sure to remember that when I update my dating profile.” Ivy winced. That was a problem she needed to deal with. One drunken mistake she regretted.

“It should be no problem finding a date given the work you do.”

“Are you on the My Single Alien database?”

“I don’t recall.” Karn collected his items from Aho and headed toward the door, keeping pace with Ivy as she strode away.

For the first time in a long time, Ivy felt uncertain around a guy. Usually, they didn’t bother her. She took advantage when she needed and enjoyed the company of one now and again. Mainly, she couldn’t be bothered with them. Relationships were complicated, and she didn’t want to deal with that ever again.

Ivy stopped walking along the frozen food section. “Was there something you needed?”

Karn turned and looked at her, amusement still lingering in his gaze. “Might I accompany you to your room? We can share that bottle of champagne I bought you.”

“You’ve got your own.”

His dark eyes glowed red for the briefest of seconds. “You see, we have more things in common than you realize.”

“I’m busy.”

Karn’s smile turned smug as if he could tell she was lying. “Perhaps you can thank me later.”

“What for?”

“Buying you dinner.” He grinned before walking out of the store.

Ivy stared after him. Forkas dressed like space superheroes. Karn was no exception. His suit was tailor-made out of some sort of breathable form-fitting fabric. He looked like an evil version of Spiderman. It should look ridiculous, but it made Ivy want to peel him out of that suit with her teeth. If the muscles were half as good as she’d fantasized, Karn was one hot alien package.

Forkas were leanly muscular, but not always as tall as Karn. He was gorgeous. She only realized she was staring at him when he turned and gave her a finger wave.

Annoyed she’d been caught staring, Ivy stamped to the store exit. She was about to leave when she heard an annoyingly familiar laugh and ducked behind a display of portable air purifiers.

Her colleagues, Vegas Munro, Heather Roberts, Nell Saunders, and Avril Anwell, hurried into the store. They were laughing and joking with each other. Their cloying friendship looked so annoying.

Ivy kept them in view but made sure they didn’t see her. They were so smug and happy. Vegas and Heather were recently shacked up with aliens. Not that they should be, but somehow, they’d gotten around Diadora’s rules about dating and were happily in love with their aliens.

They were such a disgusting clique. Ivy could imagine all their conversations revolved around their alien lovers and how to set up Avril and Nell as soon as possible. Before long, they’d be popping out alien babies for everyone to coo over. She wrinkled her nose at the thought. Their office would smell of baby talc and dirty nappies before long. It gave her another reason to avoid visiting the office and stay in the studio she used for photo shoots.

Ivy watched them smiling and joking as they inspected the candy display. She knew never to trust a smile; it always hid something. Whenever somebody was nice, it meant they wanted to get something out of her. She’d learned that the hard way.

When Ivy was certain they were focused on the display of candy, she snuck out of the store and hurried away.

“Ivy, wait up.”

She ignored Nell’s call, pretending she hadn’t heard. Ivy didn’t want to explain herself to them. They were her work colleagues, and she tolerated them but didn’t consider them friends. They were annoyances she had to put up with. Ivy knew what they called her behind her back: Poison Ivy. Tragically unoriginal, but accurate. If anyone crossed her, she always got her revenge.

Ivy only relaxed when she saw the door to her apartment. She waved her hand over the access panel, and the door slid open.

She placed her bag down and leaned against the wall, taking a deep breath and relaxing as she took in the familiar surroundings of her living room. The green and cream colors soothed her angst.

“Prince Charming, I’m home. You won’t believe the day I’ve had.” She kicked off her shoes and padded across the room, smiling as she opened her bedroom door. All she needed was her little sanctuary and her prince to welcome her.

It was how she liked it. No one else was welcome. Not ever.