No. I wanted to talk to her. I wanted to inhale her. “I don’t think she’s ready to talk to anything that isn’t made in a bakery.”

Eva laughed. “Don’t let her food craving scare you off.” Someone called her name across the room, and she waved before holding up the business card. “I’ll give the studio a call. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.”

I stood there for a second after she left, feeling like I’d been flipped upside down and hung by my ankles, and was still hanging there.

“You okay, Ben?” Carson asked, voice carrying under the music.

“Yeah.” I turned back, taking my seat once again. I needed to finish his tattoo—an infinity symbol which looked simple but was actually difficult to execute because of the three-dimensional elements I was adding. If she’d bumped into me a second earlier or later, there would have been a thick black line running up the inside of Carson’s wrist, and that wouldn’t have been good for my reputation.

“So, Esme?”

I glanced up at him and then back down. Carson Lord was one of many actors in the room. An Alpha, but he played the lighter roles. Comic relief, which was why him getting a tattoo on his wrist in the middle of an industry party wasn’t career suicide. There were more than enough actors in this room—Alphas and Betas alike—who’d eyed me, clearly wanting to come over before they were inevitably pulled away by whatever publicist had to make sure they kept their image clean.

That was fine. I was getting paid either way.

“What about her?” I asked, trying to disguise the sharpness of my interest. New waves of her scent still lingered in the air. The bitterness of tea steeped too long and the lightness of it when you breathed in the steam. But mostly, the feather-light sweetness of the air in spring when you walked by lilacs in full bloom.

Fuck, I loved that scent.

And I’d purred for her. Hopefully the music had hidden that instinctual bit of Alphaholic instinct, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world. She’d been distressed, and I needed to comfort her.

“You like her?”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never met her before. How would I know?”

He stared at me, challenging me with his gaze until I relented with a growl. “Fine. She smells amazing, and I’m finding it very difficult to focus on inking you.”

“Clearly she likes the way you smell too, cupcake.”

“That’s a new one,” I admitted. “Most people have said some shade of vanilla, but cupcake is very specific.”