A Taste for You - Chapter 4

Your dessert shop might truly have reached the end.

You had tried everything, but nothing worked. Revenue no longer covered expenses. Closing was only a matter of time.

Anxiety kept you awake night after night. Curled beneath the blankets, you cried until your eyes were swollen, and your hair began falling out by the handful.

Qin Wei took charge of all three meals, cooking fish and meat for you every day, but you only grew thinner. Even the baby fat in your cheeks began to disappear.

The sweetness in your pheromones became almost impossible to detect.

You sensed that Qin Wei had been irritable lately.

It became especially obvious when you decided to dismiss him. His dark eyes filled with coldness, and even his voice carried a trace of danger.

“What did you say?”

You had drunk too much. Cheeks flushed, you pushed his wages across the table and slurred, “The shop hasn’t been doing well. Thank you for staying with me all this time, but I can’t afford your salary anymore. I can introduce you to someone who’s hiring. You can still live with me until you find somewhere else…”

You were truly grateful to him. He had tried so hard to restore your health. Without him, you did not know whether you could have endured these past months.

You had some idea of how he felt about you, but you could not keep holding him back, making him waste his life beside you in an empty shop.

Qin Wei did not take the handful of bills.

A vein throbbed in his forehead.

What difference was there between firing him and killing him?

These days, if he went a single day without smelling your pheromones, he wanted to hang himself.

Slumped over the table with your wineglass, you mumbled about how grateful you were to him, how much the shop meant to you, how it was the one thing your mother had left behind. If the shop remained open, perhaps she would find her way back someday.

Qin Wei pinched the bridge of his nose.

An unstable Omega wandering alone—if she was still alive, she was probably imprisoned in some Alpha’s basement.

Not every Alpha could be satisfied with merely breathing in a little sweetness, as he had been.

Qin Wei stared at the exposed nape of your neck. His teeth began to itch again.

Perhaps even he was no longer satisfied with only your scent.

He suppressed the restlessness and gathered you gently into his arms.

“It’s all right. I’ll always stay with you. I don’t need wages. Being beside you is enough.”

You sniffled and cried quietly against his chest, counting on your fingers one by one.

“Mom, the dessert shop, and you. You’re the most important things in my heart.”

Then you folded your fingers down and counted again.

“Huh? Why are there eight? Wasn’t it three?”

Qin Wei ground his teeth in fury.

How could you have so many important things?

And he was last.

The next morning, you overslept.

You woke with no time even to eat and rushed toward the door.

Qin Wei pressed you into a chair at the dining table, set out your bowl, and calmly informed you that he had already sold every dessert made the day before.

“Sold everything?”

You could not understand. You had tried every method you could think of, yet nothing sold. How had Qin Wei cleared the shelves?

He peeled a shrimp and fed it to you.

“Don’t think too much. Things will keep getting better.”

His method had actually been quite simple.

Qin Wei had taken your desserts to the care facility. There, he discarded the docility he wore around you and sold cakes with murder in his eyes.

Every Omega who saw him trembled. Whenever he asked darkly, “Would you like to buy a slice of cake?” not one dared say no.

Even though he sold everything, Qin Wei was not especially pleased.

He hated sharing your pheromones with anyone, even when the cakes carried only the faintest trace of your sweetness.

To celebrate the shop’s revival, you made him a cake with twice the usual sugar.

Qin Wei smelled your pheromones brighten with happiness and curled his lips.

Fine. The shop could remain open for now.

Its recovery gave you fresh determination. At midnight, you crept out of bed to work on another recipe.

Qin Wei finally reached the end of his patience. He pushed open your bedroom door, confiscated every notebook and pen with efficient precision, and pressed you back onto the mattress.

“Are you going to sleep or not?”

“I suddenly had a good idea. I just wanted to write it down.”

“Write it tomorrow.”

“I’ll forget by tomorrow.”

“Then forget it.”

Qin Wei could no longer maintain a pleasant expression. For once, he snapped at you.

He had gone to enormous lengths—cooking for you with hands trained to kill—in hopes of restoring your sweet scent. Yet you never obeyed. You always found some small way to anger him.

He forced down his temper and lay beside you.

“Sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

You turned and looked at him.

Although he seemed furious, you could not bring yourself to fear him.

He was such a gentle person. During the weeks when you barely ate and stayed up every night, Qin Wei had grown thinner too. His already frail face had lost what little color it possessed, and the shadows beneath his eyes were worse than yours.

Your habits must have worried him terribly.

After a moment’s thought, you shared half your blanket with him. Then, cheeks burning, you rolled away and closed your eyes with a young girl’s bashfulness.

“Good night.”

Even after your breathing steadied in sleep, Qin Wei remained frozen.

At last he turned and stared bitterly at your back.

Your utter lack of caution around Omegas tormented him, yet exploiting your kindness filled him with secret delight.

Then fear rose in him without warning.

If you learned one day that he was an Alpha, would you still tuck half your blanket over him?