________

BRYAN

 

Eva and I rode over to the site the next day together and when we walked in there was an impeccably dressed, gorgeous man looking around the store. I assumed he was a consumer who had slipped in, was trespassing and was curious to see the progress of the mall. I could not have been more wrong. Eva walked over to him and when the guy turned around Eva gave him a big hug.

 

“Pierre Toussant, it has been ages! How are you? What are you doing here?”

 

Pierre gave Eva a kiss on either cheek and smiled at her.  “Eva Davis, it is so good to see you!  I am here to help with the project.”

 

A look of confusion fell over Eva’s face as she quickly looked around the store.

 

“I thought Jean-Luc was our point person here.”

 

“He was, but he had a family emergency and he had to go back to his hometown. Unfortunately, he will not be able to complete this project.”

 

Eva looked worried.” Oh no, well I hope everything is okay.”

 

“I told him to keep in touch and give us updates so hopefully we will hear something soon.”

 

Eva glanced over at me and then looked back at Pierre.

 

“Oh my goodness, how rude of me. Pierre Toussant I would like for you to meet Bryan Steele, he is our newest employee and from what I’ve seen so far, he is a design genius.”

 

When Pierre looked at me with his bright green eyes I found myself completely tongue-tied. He was the epitome of an alpha and he did not hide his admiration of me.  The man was, without question, beautiful.  He took my hand, giving the back of it a gentle kiss.

 

“Enchanté,” he said as his eyes smoldered.

 

I was really surprised by my reaction to him and I slowly pulled my hand away. He was so gorgeous I could barely think and I just stood there staring at him, probably looking like a complete idiot.

 

Sexy? Check. Beautiful? Check. Trouble? Check. I did not need this alpha around because he was going to be way too much of a distraction for me.

 

Eva looked at me, her brow was furrowed a bit, and she broke the silence.

 

“I think Bryan is a bit overwhelmed with everything, But he really does speak!”

 

That jolted me out of my daze and I was completely embarrassed.

 

“Oh my goodness, I am so sorry, I guess I’m just a little bit surprised that things have changed. Does this mean we need to go over everything again that we did yesterday?” I looked at Eva for guidance.  “Because we all seemed to be on the same page and I’m just wondering if we need to start over from zero.”

 

Pierre jumped in. “Absolutely not, I know Jean-Luc’s work and I am confident that whatever you decided yesterday will be wonderful. You just need to catch me up to speed and we can continue with your vision.”

 

I was happy to hear that because we really had spent a great deal of time the previous day designing our plan.  We worked a full day and near the end of the day a stunning blonde omega breezed into the store and gave Pierre a double kiss.  I kind of felt a sense of relief as I assumed he was his mate. It bothered me that I was even remotely attracted to Pierre.  He was so attractive and I guess seeing two such beautiful men in such a short span of time threw me off.  Sebastian had been gone for a day and already another man had caught my eye.  What was going on?  I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and chalked it up to missing Sebastian because I was pretty sure if he were around, I wouldn’t even look at anyone else.

 

Eva went over to the blonde and gave him a double kiss.  “Milo, it is so good to see you. What a nice surprise that I get to see two old friends in one day.  What are you doing here?”

 

“Pierre told me about this wonderful project so I just thought I would come and take a look for myself. Is Sebastian around?”

 

Something in the way he asked that question made the hairs on my arms stand on end. Why was he asking about Sebastian?

 

“Before we talk about that, I would like for you to meet Bryan Steele, our newest employee.”

 

He barely could be bothered to look at me as he shook my hand with a limp wrist, giving me a forced smile.

 

“Nice to meet you.”  He turned to Eva.” About Sebastian?”

 

“He is in Switzerland for the week. Did you want me to get a message to him?”

 

I could hear something in Eva’s voice; there was something going on with this omega and Sebastian, or at least there probably had been something at some point.

 

He gave her a tiny smirk as he ran his fingers through his hair.

 

“No chéri, I will get a hold of him myself.  This structure is beautiful, by the way.  It is the talk in all of Paris!”  He breezed out the door just as quickly as he had breezed in.

 

I turned to look at Eva.” Who was that?”

 

“Oh him? That is Sebastian’s ex.”

 

Another one?  Of course he was, and of course he looked like that. I hated how being around so many attractive, well-dressed people made me feel less than adequate.  I was a very pretty omega, I knew that, but the people I was now working with were all stunning and I hated that I was starting to feel insecure. I had to remind myself that Sebastian came after me, and he really liked me. But I wished there was something I could do to fancy up my appearance. I vowed that once I received my first paycheck, I was going to upgrade my wardrobe.

 

“He is very beautiful.”

 

Eva nodded and then a small smirk touch the corner of her mouth.  “He is also trouble and I hope he stays away while we’re here. They had a very intense relationship and we just don’t need his energy around us right now.”

 

To me intense meant that there were strong feelings there on some level and I hoped that Sebastian was not still harboring anything for him. Milo clearly was still after Sebastian and the last thing I needed was to have to worry about some omega going after Sebastian.  I looked at Eva afraid to ask my next question, but I had to know.

 

“Do you think they will get back together?”

 

She looked at me, her eyes searching mine and I could see a look of recognition flood her face.

 

“Oh no.  Tell me I’m wrong.  My cousin has gotten to you, hasn’t he?  Damn it, I knew it was too good to be true.  I was hoping that for once he would keep his hands to himself but, sweetie,” she gently lifted my chin as she studied my eyes, “I can see that he has you hooked.”

 

I did my best to deny anything was going on.

 

“What?  No, I was just curious about Milo because he’s so, you know, fancy, and so is Sebastian.  I have never been around people like this before so it is fascinating to see this kind of stuff going on right in front of me.”

 

Thankfully, I seemed to convince her because she breathed a deep sigh of relief.

 

“Oh, thank goodness!  I thought you had been swept up in his bullshit.”  She quickly put her hand over her mouth and shook her head.  “I didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did. I love my cousin, but I also know the kind of man he is and you’re just too nice of a person to fall for any of his stuff.”

 

“Me?  Yeah, I’m not interested in getting involved in any sort of messy anything at work.  I think it’s important to keep work and personal life separate.  I’ve never been one to advocate dating the boss.”

 

I felt like a heel as the lies just rolled off of my tongue.  If things ever went anywhere real with Sebastian I would just explain why I had to lie and hope that Eva would forgive me.

 

“Yes, that can get very messy.  But I know what you mean wanting to know if anything is going on with those two.  When they were dating it was like a soap opera every other day with the bickering and accusations.”

 

“Accusations?”

 

“Oh yes.  Milo is the world’s least trustful person so he accused Sebastian of cheating all the time.  Sebastian finally got sick of it and dumped him.  Apparently he hasn’t gotten the memo.  Milo won’t leave him alone.”

 

Pierre started to walk over to us and Eva quickly looked at me.

 

“This conversation stays between us.”

 

I nodded in agreement as Pierre approached us.

 

“I wanted to get your opinion on a couple of things if you both have a minute.”

 

We jumped back into work mode for another hour and then called it a day.  I was mentally and physically exhausted when I finally turned in for the night but my mind began to wander.  So there was a man who wanted Sebastian in Eden Pines and a man who wanted him in Paris.  I wondered how many other men there were around the world who wanted to snag the elusive billionaire?  I couldn’t deal with the thought of him having so many men everywhere so I pushed it out of my mind and thankfully, fell asleep.

 

The next two weeks passed pretty quickly and we were able to make a lot of progress.  Sebastian called me a few times and it just solidified my feelings for him and made me miss him even more.  I could not wait until he returned to Paris. By that Friday, Eva was itching to go out and she had invited a bunch of people from work to join us, including Pierre.  I understood that they were good friends but I really wished he was not going with us.  He was nice enough but he was also a huge flirt and took every opportunity he could to flirt with me when Eva was not around.  At first I found him charming, but then he just became annoying and I really wished Jean-Luc could have come back to work with us.  I almost didn’t want to go out with everyone but I wasn’t going to let one person ruin my time in Paris.