All newly-hired interns like Anah had been emailed a detailed printout for their job orientation. This also served as their entrance pass, and Anah duly presented this at the reception desk stationed outside Function Room B.
After having Anah sign her name, the guy behind the desk provided her with an ID. "Just grab a seat inside," the admission officer advised, "and wait for your name to be called."
After thanking him with a polite smile, Anah placed the ID securely inside her shoulder bag while taking her paperback out. She went straight to the first available seat she glimpsed, and since she had started reading as soon as she was seated, she was oblivious to the curious looks she had drawn from the other interns.
With her braids, braces, and make-up-free face, Anah looked far younger than her sixteen years, but in contrast to this was her air of quiet pleasantness, and it had her peers looking at Anah as if they couldn't quite understand how to place her. Wasn't she a little too young to be here?
The same question occurred to Ethan as well when he caught sight of Anah on his way down to Function Room A, a steaming cup of vendo-dispensed coffee in his hand.
With a majority of the fifty-plus interns inside Function Room B busy texting and chatting between their ongoing stream of selfies, the petite redhead seated at the back easily stood out, and the sight was interesting enough to have Ethan's steps come into a temporary halt. He watched her for a few moments, and he couldn't keep his lips from twitching at how oblivious she appeared to the noise around her.
Good for you, kid, Ethan thought, but he forgot about her soon enough as he rejoined his friends and continued on with their meeting about Hartland's current progress. He might've forgotten her completely even, if not for his visit to the library the next day and finding a familiar face behind the library counter.
It was the little redhead again, Ethan thought in pleased surprise, and his curious gaze went straight to the book in her hands. There had been too much distance between them yesterday for Ethan to see what she had been reading, but now he saw that it was an author he also read.
He was already moving forward before he realized what he was doing. It had been a long time since he found something that stirred his interest like this, and it made Ethan realize just how empty his life had been lately.
Anah was still lost in a world of serial killers and smart, handsome detectives when a deep male voice broke into her thoughts.
"Hello."
The sound startled her, and she automatically responded even before looking up. "Hel...lo." Her voice caught at the end, with Anah finally seeing who it was that had addressed her.
The dark-haired stranger was incredibly tall and impossibly attractive, but it was his hazel eyes that had her heart nearly stuttering into a stop. There was something sinfully mesmerizing about them, and they gleamed at her in such a way that had Anah's pulse leaping crazily under her skin.
"New intern, right?"
Anah's eyes widened. "How did you know?"
"I saw you yesterday at the community hall."
Anah didn't quite know what to feel about this. He had seen her yesterday, and he still remembered her?
"Aren't you a little too young to be working away from home?"
Anah's brows furrowed. "Am I?"
"You must be what? Fourteen? Maybe even—-" Ethan stopped upon seeing the girl shake her head.
"I'm sixteen," Anah corrected him with a smile.
Ethan didn't bother hiding his surprise. "Seriously?" A nod, and Ethan could only grimace in return. "I'm sorry. You seemed a lot younger."
"It's fine," Anah was quick to assure him, and because she could no longer contain her curiosity, she then asked in a rush, "Are you a resident here?"
"For some months of the year, yeah." Ethan offered his hand afterwards. "Ethan Blackwood."
"Anah Blakely." She placed her hand in his, and a jolt of electricity sparked through her body at the hard warmth of his clasp.
"It's nice meeting you, little Anah," Ethan said with a smile. "See you around."
"See you around," she managed to respond in a steady voice, but as soon as Ethan turned his back, she released her pent-up breath and practically sagged in her seat. She watched him walk away, and the way her heart was still racing like mad scared and excited her at the same time.
Prior to this day, most of her crushes had been on boys her age, and ones so famous that they might as well have been living in a different planet. Ethan, however...he was different. He was real.
That night, Anah found it ridiculously difficult to sleep. Her senses were still stupidly tingling, and her mind unable to forget the man she had met in the library. Ethan Blackwood struck her as the kind of man who could charm the socks off anybody, but at the same time, there was a bleakness in him that she sensed, and it made Anah wish she could just wrap her arms around him and say...
Stupid, Anah thought as she flipped to her back and stared at her bedroom's ceiling. She was being stupid, to think such stupid, unrealistic thoughts. Ethan Blackwood was too gorgeous to need someone like her to comfort him, and she'd only be hurting herself to think otherwise.
No more thinking about men out of her reach, Anah vowed as she tried willing herself to sleep. But when the next day came, and Ethan showed up at the library once again, the promise she had made to herself was promptly tossed out of the window.
"Good afternoon, little Anah."
Anah wrinkled her nose. "Little?" He had called her that earlier, too, and she wasn't quite sure if she liked it. "I'm not a child," she pointed
