HELLBOUND WITH THE ALPHA

CHAPTER 2 He Comes Back

He came back two nights later.

Ava saw him the moment he walked through the door, which annoyed her, because it meant she had been looking for him without having made the conscious decision to do so. She filed that away as a thing to examine later and went back to the couple at the end of the bar who were ordering something complicated.

This time he came alone. No companion, no entourage, just Riven Varek in a dark jacket settling into a bar stool with the relaxed certainty of a man who had decided exactly how tonight was going to go. He waited until she had finished with the couple before he said anything, which she acknowledged internally as marginally better manners than she had expected.

"I was hoping you would be working tonight," he said.

"What can I get you?" Ava said.

He smiled. It was a genuinely good smile, warm and a little self-aware, and she understood immediately why it probably worked on most people. "Something that gives me an excuse to stay at this bar for a while."

"I can recommend the whiskey."

"I will take whatever you think is worth drinking."

She poured him two fingers of something that deserved more respect than most people gave it and set it in front of him. He wrapped his hand around the glass and looked at it and then looked at her with the expression of someone who had decided to be honest.

"I am going to be straightforward with you," he said. "I came back because I wanted to talk to you. Not as a customer. Just as a person."

"I appreciate the honesty," Ava said. "My answer is still no."

"I have not asked anything yet."

"You were about to ask for my number or suggest we get coffee sometime. And the answer to either of those things is no. But thank you."

He looked at her for a moment and then laughed, and the laugh was genuine rather than performed, which she found more disarming than the smile. "You are very direct."

"It saves time."

"Fair enough." He drank the whiskey. He considered it seriously, the way she had hoped he would. "This is excellent."

"I know."

"Can I ask why?" he said. "Just out of curiosity. Not to argue with the answer."

Ava considered him. He seemed genuinely curious rather than offended, which was rarer than it should have been. "Because men who come back to the same bar two nights in a row to talk to the same bartender are usually looking for something specific. And I am not that thing."

"You do not know what I am looking for."

"No," she agreed. "And I do not need to."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled again, slower this time, with something in it she could not quite read. "All right," he said. "I respect that."

He finished his drink. He left a tip that was frankly unreasonable. He did not ask for her number. He said goodnight with a politeness that was somehow more unsettling than persistence would have been, and he left, and Ava watched him go with the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that she had not seen the last of Riven Varek.

She told Zara about it that night, lying on the kitchen floor with the lights off because the overhead bulb had blown and neither of them had gotten around to replacing it. Zara listened with the focused attention she gave to things she found genuinely interesting.

"Riven Varek," Zara said. "As in the Vareks."

"Apparently."

"And he came back specifically for you."

"That is what he said."

"And you told him no."

"I told him no."

Zara was quiet for a moment. "I am proud of you," she said. "Also slightly concerned that you turned down a man worth several hundred million dollars, but mostly proud."

"He is exactly the kind of person who is used to hearing yes," Ava said. "The no was more important because of that, not less."

"That is both very wise and very annoying of you," Zara said. "You know that, right?"

Ava smiled at the ceiling. Outside the window, Ashenvale hummed and glittered in the dark. Somewhere across the city, she was reasonably certain, Riven Varek was thinking about the fact that he had not gotten what he came for.

She hoped it was uncomfortable. People like him needed to be uncomfortable more often.