Desire Me If You Can Novel - Chapter 19

Part 2: The Platypus Appeared

1

It was a sunny day, no different from any other. The sky was pristine, literally without a single cloud. A deep, vivid blue filled his field of vision. Confirming the weather, Dane prepared for work early.

That bastard will probably come to work today, too.

Checking in the mirror to ensure he was properly shaved, Dane thought to himself. If the worst came to pass, he would just knock him out immediately and bolt. He felt sorry for his teammates, but it couldn’t be helped. He had to survive first.

Until now, his trait had never been discovered. Whenever he used his pheromones to knock out a Dominant Alpha, they usually couldn’t remember what had happened, and Dane would leave the area immediately.

But I used it on that bastard twice.

Recalling that fact suddenly, he admitted it with a cynical shrug. That son of a bitch has every reason to want to kill me.

Just in case of an unforeseen situation, Dane took out his trunk and prepared to pack. So that he could throw in only the essentials and leave at any moment.

“I’ll be back, Darling.”

After kissing his cat, he left the house and drove to work as usual in his car, which was already well over ten years old. With the thought that leaving California would be a bit of a shame.

Leaving his car in the designated spot, Dane headed toward the fire station, only to pause at the sight of a group of colleagues glaring at something with furious faces. Following their gaze, he saw Grayson Miller leaning against a fire truck, talking to someone.

“What’s that?”

When he approached his colleagues and asked casually, one of them ground his teeth and spat out.

“It’s exactly what it looks like. That bastard dares to hit on Valentina.”

Valentina was the most popular female employee in the station. Because she was a beauty with a great personality, many employees secretly liked her; some had even gathered the courage to ask her out on a date, only to be gently rejected. As a result, a tacit rule had formed among them—’Let’s wait for Valentina to choose someone’—and outwardly, they maintained good collegial relationships. All while continuing to make subtle advances to quietly assert their presence.

And yet, that rake dared to approach their Valentina.

Everyone was watching them, eyes burning with jealousy and rage. Reject him, Valentina! Dump him firmly and cruelly, just like you did to us!

However, their desperate wishes did not reach her. Watching closely, half of the colleagues dropped out the moment they saw Valentina smile and stroke Grayson’s arm.

“We lost. We lost!”

“No, wait. Valentina is kind. She’s probably just trying to soften the blow before rejecting him. That must be it!”

“When she rejected me, her finger didn’t even touch me!”

“Give up! Touching the arm means it’s over!”

“Shut up! It’s not even the thigh, just the arm, and you’re already giving up? You weak bastards!”

Seeing the guys making a racket in high excitement when the people involved clearly didn’t care at all, Dane sighed involuntarily. As he shook his head and headed for the locker room, gasps of shock, groans, and short screams erupted alternately from behind him. He didn’t even need to look to know what had happened just by the sound.

“He touched her! He touched her thigh!”

“Wait, that bastard is huge. Look, his hand just naturally lands there because of his height. Calm down!”

“He’s stroking it! We’re screwed!”

“No, no! There’s no way my Valentina would fall for a rake like that!”

“Who’s your Valentina? Don’t slip your bullshit in there!”

Leaving the continuing uproar behind him, Dane went inside. He didn’t care about anything else, but seeing Grayson making moves like that, it was clear Grayson Miller had absolutely no interest in him.

As expected, he doesn’t remember.

Dane shook off his shred of worry and opened his locker leisurely. The bag he had packed in the morning had become completely unnecessary. It was a huge relief, as a journey would not have been easy for a blind and deaf cat to endure, no matter where they went.

Or perhaps everyone’s predictions were wrong. Maybe the claim that he came to find the person who knocked him out was just an excuse, and there was another reason.

Not that it’s any of my business.

When he came back out with light steps, the employees were still in the same spot. Looking around, he saw that Valentina and Grayson Miller had disappeared.

“They went together.”

Following someone’s blank mutter, another employee spoke.

“They left us behind… To think Valentina would fall for the likes of Grayson Miller…”

“Did you see her face earlier? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Valentina smile like that… She’s never smiled like that at anyone.”

“No, let’s all be rational. They just went together, right? Maybe they were simply heading in the same direction!”

The only response to his words, which clung to a last hope, was a chilly gaze.

“You’re the most irrational one here.”

“You’re the one who needs to face reality. Heading in the same direction? Yeah, right!”

“No, this guy might be right. We’re being too pessimistic right now! It’s not an impossible story, is it?”

“Right, I’ll bet on the side that they just coincidentally went the same way. Valentina wouldn’t fall for just any man like that!”

“Exactly. None of us succeeded, but she falls for Grayson Miller, and in less than an hour? That’s what’s unrealistic!”

Their arguments gradually gained strength. Dane leaned back with his arms crossed, watching the farce. To him, the situation was all too clear. The Madonna of the fire station, the flower on the high cliff, had fallen for Grayson Miller’s face in less than an hour.

Idiots.

However, regardless of whether Dane’s eyes grew cold or not, those who argued for the opposite side lost their steam and began to be persuaded one by one as they listened to the logic that fueled the hope they couldn’t let go of until the end.

“It… could be.”

As they glanced at each other, someone muttered, and another guy immediately chimed in as if he had been waiting.

“True. We might not know what kind of trash Grayson Miller is, but we all know what kind of person Valentina is, right?”

Words of agreement followed from here and there, nodding their heads.

“Right, Valentina wouldn’t do that.”

“I trust Valentina!”

“Me too, me too!”

Everyone united firmly in hope. Shaking their fists and shouting in unison, they rallied together—however, a few hours later, the moment they saw Valentina return with disheveled hair and a dazed expression, they crumbled mercilessly. Because anyone with eyes could tell what she had been doing during the couple of hours they were gone. Furthermore, as if to deliver the killing blow, Valentina pulled Grayson close first and even kissed him.

That news spread throughout the fire station thanks to a few employees who were outside checking the fire trucks. The employees waiting in the control room were appalled, and they finally had to give up the futile hope they had been holding onto until the end. Since there were a few among them who had genuinely liked Valentina, the atmosphere in the control room was gloomy enough for mold to grow.

“Valentina was out of our league anyway.”

When one person spoke up, words of agreement followed from everywhere.

“Yeah, that’s right. Valentina didn’t choose any of us.”

“Maybe Grayson Miller is a decent guy, better than we thought.”

“Anyway, it’s Valentina’s choice, so we should support her. As colleagues.”

“Of course. We’re brothers who risk our lives together.”

Still, the atmosphere flowed reasonably well. It was thanks to the pride of the macho firefighter men who, although heartbroken, didn’t want to become pathetic losers. Their stomachs churned with jealousy and they were pissed off, and Grayson was maddeningly unlucky, but what could they do now that things had turned out this way? Right, as someone said, maybe that bastard Grayson was only a jerk to them and treated Valentina exceptionally well. While forcibly hiding their sore insides, folding away their unrequited feelings, and wishing for the other’s happiness in their own way, the situation wasn’t too bad.

Until, a few hours later, they saw Grayson Miller disappear in the same direction he had gone with Valentina earlier, this time holding the waist of another colleague, Liz.