Asshole was sleeping on the couch the moment we got back home.
The door opened before I could say anything else, and I glared daggers at Beck as I slid across to get out, ignoring the hand he held out for me.
Smug bastard just laughed. I really should shoot him with my gun, but unfortunately, I had grown quite fond of him.
“So … give it to me straight … are we expecting trouble today?” I asked quietly, taking Dylan’s arm when he offered it and not missing the smug look he shot Beck. Whoops, maybe I should use Jasper if I want to annoy my brooding boyfriend. Less chance of anyone getting killed.
“Not necessarily,” Dylan answered, walking with me into the shiny polished marble lobby of Delta’s Jefferson building. “But this close to the vote, and with everything else that’s happened lately...” he trailed off with a shrug, and I nodded.
“Better safe than sorry,” I murmured, agreeing.
“Always be prepared,” Jasper added, throwing me a playful wink. “I learned that at Boy Scouts.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “You went to Boy Scouts?”
“No, but I hear great things,” he replied with a smirk.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes. “Dick.”
The five of us blew past the lobby security desk, setting metal detectors blaring with alarms and not even pausing a beat. The uniformed officer there looked more interested in avoiding our gaze than stopping us, anyway, so we stepped into the elevator unhindered.
As the doors slid shut and the box started moving, Evan started humming a tune under his breath. At first, I didn’t give it much thought, but there was a thread of familiarity to it.
Glancing at him, I frowned in confusion. He just kept humming, but gave me an amused, brow raise.
It wasn’t until we were stepping out onto the conference room floor that it clicked what the song was, and I burst out laughing.
“How very appropriate,” I told him, snickering while he broke off the tune and grinned back. “Never smile at a Crocodile. Couldn’t be any more fitting for a meeting with Catherine Deboise.”
“I don’t get it,” Beck commented with a small frown.
Evan sang the lyrics under his breath as we walked across the plush carpet with the conference room ahead of us putting emphasis on the part about the crocodile imagining how well the object of its attention would fit inside it’s skin. Essentially implying Catherine was plotting to kill us all.
With the joke explained, we were all chuckling as we entered the board room, and I don’t think we could have disturbed the Delta council more if we’d walked in wearing eight-foot-tall Teletubby suits.
“Something funny, daughter?” Catherine asked, her voice tart and her blue eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t aware that this was a comedic meeting.”
Unable to pass up an opportunity to get under her skin, I just gave a blasé shrug. “Just discussing plans for your retirement home, Catherine. You’ve been looking so stressed lately, it’s showing around the eyes.” I indicated to the crow’s feet which werebarelyvisible, but to a woman of Catherine’s vanity level it was a scathing insult.
Her mouth tightened, pursing into something that vaguely resembled a cat’s asshole, and I tried really hard not to laugh.
“Thank you for joining us,” Mr. Langham addressed us, cutting off whatever Catherine was about to respond with. “Please take a seat and we can begin.”
He indicated to the vacant side of the table where five seats were in a row, facing the older generation.
“We can’t begin,” Catherine snapped, shooting a glare at Mr. Langham. “Rome hasn’t arrived yet. We can’t start until all members are present and accounted for.”
“Rome couldn’t make it today,” Jasper’s father smoothly replied, and the dismissive glance he gave Catherine said he didn’t care much for her attitude either. “And given that he’s already signed over his vote to Sebastian, there seems no need to inconvenience him with the preliminary discussions.”
Catherine balked and looked a little pale. Frightened? No, not Debitch. Just annoyed, I was pretty sure.
“Yes, but Sebastian isn’t a sitting board member yet,” she argued back, not even trying to hide the irritation in her voice, “and it’s in thebylawsthat all members attend this meeting.”
Dylan’s dad—prick that he was—just scoffed a laugh and leaned back in his chair. “Bylaws also don’t permitwomena position on the board. Yet hereyouare, and with your whore of a daughter sitting as your heir, no less.”
Beck had just sat down in the seat beside me, and I spotted the tension zap through him at Grant senior’s misogynistic statement. Beck’s hands tightened on the arms of the chair, and it tookeveryounce of my control not to reach out and soothe him. Such a gesture would only fuel Dylan’s dad’s claims.
Besides. This was Catherine’s fight, not mine.
