Snow and the Seven Men (Seven Ways to Sin 1)

He grunted and rose to follow me as Queenie gave us both a scathing look, but I only smiled sweetly.

Screw both of you, I thought.

19

Graham

I didn’t even try to sleep. How could I? My heart was thudding like a bass line in my ears as everyone else was off in dreamland.

How could they go out so easily? How could they just fall asleep as if Sasha hadn’t been here last night, tantalizing us with her mere nearness?

Bash had made dinner that night, and I could still feel it rumbling around in my gut like a stone. How had we eaten like that before Sasha?

I couldn’t get her out of my head. Was she okay with that wretched duo we’d let her leave with? Why hadn’t she called or at least emailed? Hadn’t she promised to do that?

I knew I was overthinking everything, that she’d only been gone a few hours, but if this is what it was going to be like, things weren’t apt to get better, were they? I loathed the endless questions, which seemed to snowball in my head, but there was no easy way to stop them.

I rose from my bed and looked around the dorm for any signs of life, but everyone was done for the night. It felt empty in the room, like the oxygen had been sucked away.

There was one empty bed—Dan’s, and I felt a smidgen of hope. Maybe I wasn’t alone in my desolation after all. Maybe he was off thinking about her too.

I hurried out of the dorm, plotting my spiel to Dan, but when I found him, he was hunched over his desk, his face twisted in a scowl.

He’s not pining over Sasha. He’s working!

That shouldn’t have surprised me. He was always working, but it seemed to me that he should have been more affected by Sasha’s departure than he was.

“Hey,” I said, sauntering into the room. “How’s it going?”

He didn’t even bother to meet my eyes. “I’m a little busy right now, Graham. Can this wait?”

I bristled defensively. No, it couldn’t wait. “Not really,” I muttered, flopping onto an oxblood chair, facing him, but he didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Don’t you miss her?”

I finally elicited a reaction from him, but it wasn’t the one I’d wanted. If anything, he seemed more agitated by my question.

“Can we not do this right now? I’m up to my ears in financials.”

I could tell he was trying not to snap, but I didn’t want to wait. I needed to get this out, and unfortunately for him, he was the only one awake to hear it.

“Dan, we let her in, we promised to protect her, and we sent her away with those people—”

“Those people are her team. She came to Iceland with ‘those people.’ She left on her own accord. Stop acting like she was kidnapped by the evil queen.”

I gaped at him, but I realized that was exactly how I felt—like she’d been taken against her will. “But you could see she didn’t want to go!” I exploded. “It was plain as day!”

Dan sighed heavily and tossed his pen onto the mound of documents before him, sinking back into his chair. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully before he spoke.

“I like Sasha,” he told me reasonably. “A lot. Probably too much for the situation.”

I felt a surge of excitement. “So you agree then? We need to get her back.”

“No,” he countered. “I think she’s a grown woman who can make her own decisions, and she decided to go back to work. The same way I did. She knew that the time we had together was amazing and a lot of fun, but it’s time to get back to reality now.” He looked at me meaningfully, but I didn’t move.

“Dan…” I inhaled, determined not to lose my temper. “Didn’t she mean anything to you?”

His eyes narrowed, and he frowned at me. “Graham, she means a lot to all of us, but we knew from the start that she wasn’t going to stay. You can’t fall into a pit of despair over this. Shit, I should have known you were going to do this!”

I tensed, my jaw locking.

“I’m not doing anything,” I mumbled, rising from the desk. “I just thought that maybe we were all on the same page.”

He studied me pensively. “Graham…”

“Never mind,” I snapped, whirling to leave. “Clearly, she was just a pastime for you guys.”

“Graham!”

I paused in the doorway and turned to him, my eyes flashing. “What?”

“Don’t do anything stupid. She’s not a damsel in distress who needs rescuing. We made it clear that she’s welcome here, and she knows where to find us. You need to accept that she’s not coming back.”

“You’ve accepted that without issue,” I spat.

“Because I know that’s what Sasha wants. You can’t force her to be with us.”