Page 15 of Choosing the Rejected Mate

Chapter Three

Dating Is a Trap

Holly

I don’t think about Daniel Reed for the rest of the day.

Not once.Not while I’m kneading dough.Not while I’m boxing lemon bars.Not while I’m scraping dried batter off the side of the mixer he temporarily resurrected like some stupidly attractive bakery necromancer.And definitely not while I’m lying facedown on my bed at eleven o’clock that night, groaning into my pillow because my entire apartment smells faintly like cedar, sawdust, and bad decisions.

That is not Daniel’s fault.Probably.

Maybe he left his scent on my apron.Maybe my traitorous wolf has decided to replay every second of him standing in my kitchen with his hands full of tools and his eyes full of restraint.

Disgusting.

Men should not be allowed to be hot and respectful.It’s confusing.It ruins a perfectly good spiral.

My wolf stretches beneath my skin, smug and warm.Mate.

“No,” I mumble into the pillow.

She thumps her tail.

“No.Absolutely not.We talked about this.”

We did not talk about this.

Mostly because talking to my wolf out loud makes me sound one bad day away from being adopted by the town’s weird crystal lady, and I already have enough problems.I own a bakery.Daniel’s prayers are holding together my mixer and what I’m pretty sure was a piece of copper wire.I have bills stacked on my little kitchen table like a tiny paper mountain of doom.

I don’t have time for a mate.More importantly, I don’t have trust for one.The last time fate handed me a mate, he handed me my heart back in pieces.No, thank you.

I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling.My apartment is above the bakery, small but mine.One bedroom, one bathroom, and a kitchen barely big enough to turn around in.The living room has a secondhand couch that sags in the middle like it has given up on love, life, and lumbar support.

It’s not fancy.It’s absolutely not impressive.But the lock works, the rent is paid, and no one can walk in unless I let them.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand, and I know who it is before I even look because apparently the universe has become predictable in its torment.