Alex (The Sterling Club Billionaires #8)

1. ONE

ONE

Alex

Emily Carter had worked on my floor for twelve days.

In that time, she had moved thirty-seven books, changed the lighting in the main archive, opened blinds I kept closed, and introduced a rule requiring me to sign out anything I removed from my own shelves.

She had also learned that I watched her.

Most people became less natural when they noticed my attention. They straightened, lowered their voices, or searched my face for whatever response would make the room easier.

Emily looked up from the ledger she was cataloging and said, "If you intend to stand there for another hour, you could at least make yourself useful."

I remained beside the western shelves.

She waited. Silence didn't affect her. I had tested that repeatedly, although not on purpose at first. Emily treated it as a pause in which she could organize her next thought rather than a warning that the conversation had ended.

She closed the ledger and looked toward the book in my hand.

"You've moved that three times today."

"It belongs in my library."

"It belongs wherever the catalog says it belongs until I finish assessing the collection. At the moment, that is case seven, shelf two."

"Well, I was reading it."

"You've been on the same page since lunch."

There were two explanations available. I could tell her the essay required more concentration than I had given it, or I could admit I had spent most of the afternoon watching her tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear whenever it fell across her notes. Neither would improve the situation.

Emily held out her hand.

"Give it back."

She spoke to me as though I were inconvenient rather than intimidating. I had spent years discouraging people from becoming comfortable in my presence. Emily had managed it before the end of her first morning.

I crossed the archive and placed the book in her open palm. Her fingers brushed mine, and the contact lasted less than a second. It remained the only thing I could feel after she turned away.

"Thank you," she said, returning the volume to the padded cart beside her. "You may have it back when I've finished the condition report."

"It's mine."

"Yes, you've mentioned that. Ownership doesn't make the binding less fragile, and it certainly doesn't give you permission to leave it facedown on a table."

"I didn't leave it facedown!"

"You were about to."

"You don't know that." I realize I sounded like a petulant child.

Emily glanced at me over her shoulder. "I'm beginning to know several things about you."

The words should not have sounded intimate. They did.

She walked back to the central table, where half the private archive had been reduced to numbered boxes, handwritten cards, and precisely aligned stacks. The arrangement looked chaotic from a distance. I understood the system because I had watched her create it, though I had not told her that.

Box labels were written in black ink. Items requiring conservation received a small blue mark in the upper corner. Anything Emily found personally interesting earned a faint pencil dot beside the record number, which she probably believed no one else had noticed.

She had placed three dots beside books from my mother's collection. I hadn't decided whether that bothered me.

The private elevator opened before I could return to the question.

Josie Sutton stepped onto the floor wearing a dark red dress and the wary expression people usually saved for unfamiliar animals. Her gaze found me first, then moved to Emily.

"I was told Alex wasn't here."

"You were told incorrectly," I said.

Emily covered a smile by looking down at her paperwork.

Josie glanced toward the shelves. "Matteo sent me for the old guestbook. They want it upstairs for the rooftop reopening."

"No."

Emily spoke at the same time.

Josie looked between us. "Is that a shared no or two separate objections?"

"The guestbook isn't leaving the archive," I said.

"It can leave," Emily said. "Provided someone handles it properly, keeps it away from the bar, and brings it back before the damp night air has time to affect the pages."

I turned toward her. "You said no."

"I was answering the version of this plan where someone carries it upstairs under one arm and leaves it beside an ice bucket."

Josie looked mildly offended. "I wasn't going to do that."

"Then we're already making progress."

Emily went to the glass case near the north wall and entered the security code.

She had memorized it after seeing me use it once.

When I changed it, she noticed before the end of the day and informed me that continually altering her working conditions was not an effective management technique. I had restored the original code.

She lifted the guestbook from its cradle and examined the spine before closing the case again.

"I'll take it upstairs," she said.

"You're working."

"I've been working for nine hours, Alex. I'm allowed to walk into another room."

"The roof isn't another room."

Emily settled the guestbook against her chest. "That is an unexpectedly philosophical objection."

"There are people upstairs."

"I've encountered people before."

Josie watched the exchange with open interest.

I disliked having an audience. More than that, I disliked that Emily was leaving the floor and I hadn't known she was going to.

"I'll carry it," I said.

"I'm more than capable of carrying a book in an elevator."

"I didn't say you weren't."

"Then why do you need to carry it?"

Because it was heavy. Because the rooftop would be crowded. Because I wanted a reason to remain beside her once she stepped into the elevator, and I couldn't say any of those things with Josie watching.

I held out my hand.

Emily studied me for a moment, then gave me the guestbook.

"Two hands," she said. "Support the lower edge, and don't open it unless it's resting on a flat surface."

"I know how to hold a book."

"You also own several books with cracked spines, so the evidence is mixed."

Josie laughed as the elevator opened. Emily stepped inside beside her. I followed, and both women looked at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing," Josie said.

Emily leaned toward the control panel and pressed the rooftop button. "You could have returned to your library."

The elevator began to rise. I could smell her perfume in the enclosed space — something warm and almost festive beneath the familiar scent of paper dust that clung to her clothes at the end of each day.

Emily wore a navy dress with a soft cardigan over it. She had fastened her hair at the back of her neck that morning, but several pieces had escaped. One curved against her cheek, and the urge to move it arrived with enough force that I tightened my grip on the guestbook.

Emily noticed. "Is it heavier than you expected?"

"No." I gritted out.

"You're holding it as though someone might try to take it."

I looked at her. Her mouth curved, and the doors opened before I decided how much she understood.

Music and conversation entered the elevator at once. The rooftop had been restored after the attack that destroyed part of the garden, and the club had chosen to mark the reopening with champagne, flowers, and thirty people I had successfully avoided for years.

Fuck.

Every nearby conversation stopped.

Emily stepped out, then slowed. "Do they always do that?"

"Do what?" Matteo asked from behind the bar.

"Go silent when someone uses the elevator."

"Only when Alex is inside it."

She turned to me. "You didn't mention this was a party."

Someone laughed. JJ Clark, judging by the direction of the sound.

I looked toward the men gathered near the bar. Danny, Jagger, Caleb, Elliot, James, JJ, and Aries had all noticed me. Several appeared entertained, which was another reason to leave.

Emily had already crossed toward the nearest table.

I followed.

"Set it down here," she said. "Carefully, because I don't intend to explain to the board that the club's most private member damaged its oldest guestbook during his first social appearance in half a decade."

"I've attended events more recently than that."

"When?"

I considered the question. Emily watched me consider it.

"How long?" she asked.

"Three years."

She smiled as she adjusted the supports beneath the guestbook. "Then we should try to make this one memorable."

It already was.

Matteo brought her champagne. She thanked him, asked who had selected the rooftop lighting, and spent several minutes explaining why old paper and decorative candles were natural enemies.

She spoke easily, drawing people into the conversation without seeking their approval.

When Matteo disagreed, she listened to his argument before dismantling it.

When Josie asked about a damaged inscription, Emily lowered the book so she could see it more clearly.

I remained beside her. Not because of the guestbook — that excuse had expired as soon as the book touched the table.

Emily glanced at me after twenty minutes. "You don't have to stay."

I disliked the sentence immediately. "Do you want me to leave, Emily?"

Her expression changed, some of the humor giving way to surprise. "No. I was just giving you the option."

"I know where the elevator is."

"I assumed you did. You guard it as though someone might steal the cables."

I should have left then. I had no interest in the reopening, the speeches, or the men watching me with poorly concealed curiosity. Emily lifted her champagne and turned back to Josie.

I stayed.

The rooftop lights reflected in her hair. She talked with her hands when the subject interested her and touched the rim of her glass whenever she was listening. Twice, she looked toward me to include me in a conversation I had made no effort to join. Each time, I answered.

When Matteo called everyone toward the center of the garden, Emily stepped closer to allow another couple past. Her shoulder touched my arm, and I moved my hand to the small of her back before thinking. She went still.

The contact was light. I could have removed it without drawing attention. I didn't.

Emily looked up at me. "You've been very concerned about people walking into me tonight."

"There are too many of them."

"There are thirty."

"That's twenty-nine too many."

Her smile came slowly. "You know, beneath the shining hospitality, I'm beginning to suspect you don't enjoy parties."

The toast began before I could answer. She stayed beside me through all of it, and I kept my hand at her back.

* * *

The rooftop had emptied by the time we returned to the archive.

Emily carried the guestbook again because she had refused to trust me with it after two glasses of bourbon. She placed it inside the case, recorded the movement, and locked the door.

"There," she said. "The club's history has survived another evening."

I stood on the other side of the table. The floor felt different after the noise upstairs — too quiet, though nothing had changed except Emily's presence inside it.

She gathered her notes into a canvas bag and reached for her coat.

"You're leaving?"

"It's nearly midnight. Most temporary librarians are allowed home eventually."

The word temporary caught in a place I had no intention of examining.

"How are you getting there?"

"The subway."

"No."

Emily paused with one arm inside her coat. "That sounded less like a question and more like the beginning of a problem."

"I'll have a car take you."

"I take the subway every night."

"Not tonight."

"Has the subway suddenly become more dangerous since yesterday?"

"It's late."

"It was late yesterday."

"I didn't know you used the subway yesterday."

Her gaze held mine. The answer was a lie. I had known the time she left, the station she used, and the fact that she bought coffee from the cart at Forty-Seventh every morning except Tuesday, when she arrived carrying tea. I hadn't spoken to her enough to justify knowing any of it.

Emily finished putting on her coat.

"I appreciate the offer," she said, gentler than I expected. "But you don't need to reorganize my life because we spent an hour at the same party."

"I'm not reorganizing it."

She lifted her bag onto her shoulder and came around the table. "Good night, Alex."

I wanted to stop her. I wanted to hoard her like a fucking dragon with gold.

"You haven't finished the west cases," I said.

Emily looked toward the darkened archive. "I'll be back in the morning."

The relief was immediate and far larger than the statement warranted. She noticed that too, and her expression softened.

"Eight o'clock," she added. "Unless you plan to move more books before then, in which case I'll arrive earlier and bring labels large enough for you to read."

The elevator opened. Emily stepped inside and faced me as the doors began to close.

"Try not to miss me too much, Alex."

She was teasing. I wasn't.

After she left, I went to the security panel and changed her access from temporary staff hours to unrestricted. Then I opened the contract Lola had sent when Emily was hired.

Thirty-two days remained.