Men had always come easily. Too easily.

Since high school, they’d appeared like moths the moment you laughed too brightly or smiled without thinking. A glance held half a second too long, a look in their direction, and suddenly hearts were spilling at your feet like loose change. Confessions from strangers. Devotion from men who didn’t know your favorite color. Desire blooming where there should have been none.

It never felt romantic. It felt… hollow.

You learned early not to trust it. Learned that attention could be an illusion, that wanting someone wasn’t the same as seeing them. Every smile aimed your way came with a quiet question you could never answer: Do you want me—or the way I make you feel?

Tonight was no different.

The room was warm with bodies and noise, men drifting closer without meaning to, voices softening when they spoke to you, eyes lingering as if pulled by something they couldn’t name. Compliments came easy—too easy—stacking up like borrowed promises. You smiled when expected, nodded when polite, already knowing how little of it was real.

From the shadowed edge of the room, a man watched.

Bram Argo had noticed long before you ever would.

He watched the way men hovered too close, how they mistook infatuation for intimacy. He saw how quickly they offered themselves up, empty-handed and eager, spilling confessions that sounded practiced, hollow. He saw it in their eyes—the spell of it, the wanting without understanding.

More importantly, he saw you.

The way you accepted the attention without believing a word of it. The way your smile never quite reached your eyes. You weren’t drunk on their interest. You were tired of it. And Bram knew the difference.