Page 19 of The Forgery Mate (Taken by His Alpha #6)

“It matters. It was a significant sum.” His attention never wavers, searching for tells I’ve spent years learning to suppress. “Enough to start over somewhere far from here. Yet here you are, selling obscure books to a nearly nonexistent audience.”

“Maybe I have an appreciation for books.” I gesture to the shelves around us. “Maybe Tobias Crane is happy with his quiet life.”

“Maybe.” Aaiden doesn’t believe me. I don’t believe me, either. “Or maybe you couldn’t bring yourself to profit from walking away.”

The accuracy of his assessment sends a chill down my spine. Taking the money would have made the leaving real, would have transformed an act of protection into a transaction. I couldn’t stomach putting a price tag on my feelings for Ezra.

“Why are you here?” I ask again, trying to regain control of the conversation. “If you’re dropping by to ensure I keep my distance, consider the message received.”

“Is that why you left my cousin waiting in a garden at Halcyon Hall three months ago, after he risked his life to save yours, Mr. Mercier?” The use of my real surname stops my breath. “Because of the NDA?”

Shame burns hot in my chest, spreading outward until my ears ring with it. “I did what was necessary.”

“For whom?” The question holds no judgment, only curiosity, which somehow cuts deeper. “For Ezra? Or yourself?”

“For both of us.” I turn away, needing to escape his too-perceptive eyes. “He deserves someone with a future.”

Silence stretches between us, broken only by the tick of the ancient wall clock and the distant sounds of traffic outside.

When Aaiden speaks again, his voice has softened a fraction. “Do you love him?”

The question drives the air from my lungs. My fingers find the lip of a shelf, gripping wood as the room tilts around me. Three months of lying to myself, of building walls around memories of Ezra’s hands, his mouth, the way he whispered my real name over and over.

Ren, Ren, Ren.

I let out a bitter breath, knuckles white as I grip the worn counter. “I’m too old and in the wrong business to love anyone.”

Aaiden studies me with an unreadable expression. “That’s not a no.”

My chest constricts, ribs squeezing out my next breath. No, that’s not a no. It can’t be. Even now, with Aaiden standing before me instead of Ezra, I can’t form the lie that would set us both free.

I need an escape, a distraction from the raw nerve he exposed. My mind grasps for anything else to discuss and lands on the one person whose fate has haunted me since Halcyon Hall.

“How is Jade?” The image of the young Omega locked in a cage still visits me at night. Yet another ghost to haunt me.

A change comes over Aaiden’s face, a subtle softening around the eyes, a minute relaxation of his jaw, but in a man so controlled, it speaks volumes.

“He’s alive.” Aaiden moves to the window, staring out at the street beyond rather than at me. “Recovering physically. The psychological wounds will take longer.”

“Did they…” I can’t finish the question, unwilling to speak of the horrors that might have befallen him.

“He was with them for almost two months.”

Bile creeps up my throat. That’s two Heat cycles.

Aaiden’s shoulders stiffen. “We’ll make them pay. And he’s safe now, thanks to you.”

The acknowledgment catches me off guard. I’d expected recrimination for abandoning Ezra, not gratitude for helping Jade.

“Why are you really here?” I ask, suddenly exhausted by this game. “It’s been three months. If you wanted to warn me to keep staying away, you could have sent someone else.”

Aaiden turns from the window, catching me staring. Without speaking, he reaches into his jacket and removes a cream-colored envelope, thick with expensive cardstock. He crosses to me and extends it, the gesture neither threatening nor warm.

I hesitate before I take it. The envelope bears no address, no name, just the embossed logo of Sanctum Gallery in the corner. A frisson of interest goes through me. The new gallery has been the talk of the local art world, though I haven’t had the heart or the stomach to go check it out.

I turn it in my hand. “What is this?”

“An invitation.” Aaiden watches me break the seal and remove the card inside. “To a private exhibition opening next Friday evening.”

The invitation is a masterpiece of understated elegance, the deep charcoal gray cardstock engraved with silver lettering that catches the light as I tilt it.

Sanctum Gallery

Presents

Forgeries Through History: Art, Authenticity, and the Masters of Deception

A Private Exhibition

8 PM, Friday

My pulse quickens. This is too specific, too targeted to be a coincidence. A gallery show about forgeries, given to a forger, and hand-delivered by Aaiden Rockford to my door.

“What does this mean?” I look up from the card to find Aaiden studying my reaction.

“It means what it says.” He taps the invitation with one long finger. “A show about the line between real and fake, and the people who cross that line.”

“Why give this to me?” Cold fear trickles down my spine, mixing with a treacherous heat of anticipation in my gut. “What game are you playing?”

Aaiden straightens, adjusting cuffs in need of no adjustment. “No game. Think of it as an opportunity.”

“For what?”

“Come and find out,” he challenges. “You might discover what you’ve been looking for.”

How much does he know about my search for the Valenne? About my grandfather’s connection to it? About why I approached Ezra in the first place?

Without another word, Aaiden moves toward the door, his purpose in coming here fulfilled.

He pauses with his hand on the knob, turning back to me with an expression I can’t read. “The invitation includes a plus one, but I suspect you’ll come alone.”

The bell jingles as he departs, its cheerful song crashing through me. I stand frozen in the middle of my shop, the invitation clutched in fingers gone numb. Through the window, I watch Aaiden slide into the back of a waiting black car, which pulls into traffic and disappears.

Is this a trap designed to expose me? Or an olive branch extended for reasons I can’t fathom?

How can Aaiden know what I’m searching for when I no longer do?

Am I still chasing my grandfather’s ghost? Or am I now after the man I sketched to exorcise from my dreams, only to etch him deeper instead?