“Trapp! That’s horrible!” she scolded. “I’m going to tell your mom you said that. Has-has he always been like this?”
“Oh yeah, since we were kids. He had a second bedroom behind my dad’s office because that was the one room of the house that was completely off-limits, and even Lowell knew better than to disobey. So it was the one place that could be kept dark and quiet. Are you staying, or do I need to come back to check on him?”
“No, I’m staying,” she decided at that moment. She’d call in again tomorrow if necessary.It’s not like you’re going to get in trouble for it.
“He needs to go to the ER if there’s no improvement in the next few hours. You have my number, right?” She nodded, watching him swing into the huge truck, the emblem of the town’s firehouse on the door. “Call me if it gets to that point. I’ll start writing my best man speech, but I can’t promise it’s not going to be really embarrassing.”
She swallowed several painkillers she’d received from the clinic before tiptoeing back to the bedroom and curling up at his side, gratified when his hand found hers, threading their fingers again. She began to knead at the flesh of his palm, a reflexology video she’d watched a hundred times burned into her brain. She didn’t know if it actually helped him any more than the Tramadol she’d carried in her bag for the better part of the last two years, but it made her feel better to try.
It had been a very long week, and she wanted to put it behind them. Sometimes they both needed a break from the chase, she thought, closing her eyes, breathing him in.
* * *
Chapter nine
Fuckinhisofficeevery time he’s hornydidn’t have quite the same ring to it asgetting it out of our systems, but two years later, it seemed far more accurate. And probably not entirely fair, she was forced to admit, for he made sure to take care of her needs just as frequently.
She already knew they were the source of some gossip. Vanessa was confident that no one would’ve ever overheard them in his office — his suite was separated by an outer office, Johanna the only potential audience to their mid-day rendezvous, but she suspected that his longtime assistant had known from the beginning. She always had legitimate reasons for traveling up to the executive floor, particularly once she was made part of the Hastings-Durning team. He was never anything but short with her, the same as he was with everyone, their on-the-clock behavior, to all who may have been looking, completely commonplace.
She suspected someone must have seen them out together. Sharing an intimate table for two at one of Bridgeton’s high-priced restaurants, or perhaps stepping out of his car at the curb in front of the Templeton. Someone must have seen something, and she knew from experience that was all it took.
She was used to being someone with an inside track on company gossip, no matter where she worked. She made a point of being friendly with the biggest blabbermouths, never trusting them, but keeping them close enough to hear what secrets they were eager to share. She would befriend the cleaners and the mail clerks, invisible presences who always knew the dirt on the bosses, knew which coworker was getting sacked or who was pregnant, or who was humped over the broken printer in the supply room.
Now things were different. When she walked into her room, conversations halted. Eyes followed her, averting quickly when she looked up. The moment she stepped out of the doors, the whispers began again, often punctuated with giggles.
She had decided not to care. She was a mid-level associate on her way up the ladder and had begun optimistically researching the salary caps on the SA1 and SA2 positions within the firm. She worked on holidays, worked on weekends, spent more nights at her desk than she did in her bed some months. The time they were given for the moon was not a gift, and those hours had to be made up somehow, she would explain to her mother when questioned about why she couldn’t come home for a long weekend here or there. The gossip and giggles of junior associates, paralegals, and interns meant nothing to her. Let them talk, she told herself.It’s not like they have anything real to say.
That was, until the day she stepped onto the elevator going up to the executive floor. The conversation that was taking place between two other partners immediately halted as she stepped into the car. Ekins was a cat shifter, a senior partner like Grayson, with his name over the door. He was older, a bit more hands-off, and had always treated her respectfully. He nodded, his eyes lowering as the doors slid shut, but it was the other man’s reaction that caught her attention. He was younger, only recently named partner in the past six months or so, a salaried position without equity of his own. He had been the one talking, the one who had cut off abruptly. His eyes also lowered, but his mouth held the shadow of a smirk, and she had no doubt that he would resume whatever crass thing he’d been saying the instant she left.
She’d not often been the source of gossip in her lifetime, but Vanessa knew without question that she had been the topic of this man’s conversation, at least one half of it. She never turned to the doors, remaining facing the men at the elevator glided upwards, waiting for the younger man to make his mistake. She didn’t have to wait long. His eyes lifted from his shoes, catching hers, unable to look away as she stared him down. She knew from the hint of color that reddened his ears that she was not wrong in her assumptions.
Her nose couldn’t pick out his scent, but she knew what he wasn’t. He wasn’t a wolf, was not an apex predator in any situation. He didn’t possess the spine of steel they did, the fearlessness and indomitability they did. She wasn’t sure what he was, but he may as well have been a human. After a few moments, his chin jutted out, lips curling into a sneer as if he’d only just remembered he was several stations above her in the firm’s hierarchy.I’m going to ruin this man’s whole fucking career.
“Fine weather we’re having this week.” Her voice was overloud in the small, silent car, ringing with confidence. “Judge Ludstrohm is always in a good mood when the weather is nice. That bodes well for us.”
“Any day he can get onto the Ketterling court means fast and easy cases,” Ekins agreed with a chuckle, his eyes raising to give her a warm smile.
They bounced to a soft stop, the doors opening with a ding on the floor beneath Grayson’s office. She didn’t need to feed them more ammunition, she had decided as soon as she’d seen the man’s smirk. She grumbled the entire way she stomped up the stairs, Johanna raising an eyebrow when she burst through the door.
“Johanna, what do you know about that new guy, Brock?”
The older she-wolf’s lips turned up in a pink-painted smile.
“I know his Majesty doesn’t care for him. He’s someone’s brother-in-law, I think? There was something shady with him at his previous firm, poaching clients, something like that. It all got swept under the rug before he was hired. I was surprised when they gave him a partner, but I think Gray just went along with it. He knew he was outvoted.”
“Does he not like him because of poaching clients?” That sort of behavior was unscrupulous, but it was precisely Grayson’s MO, she thought.
“No, I believe he said something about not liking how he smells?”
Vanessa snorted, pushing open the door to his office, knowing she would have been stopped had he been in the middle of something. His eyebrow raised as soon as the door closed behind her.
“I know that pissy look isn’t for me.”
“No, it’s for that smirky motherfucker you made partner, even though he doesn’t have enough chips to buy his way in.”
Grayson began to laugh before she’d even finished.
“Brock? I fucking hate that asshole. He’s a weasel or a badger, some overgrown rodent, I’m positive. The smell of him makes my stomach turn. Why? What did he do? Did he say something to you?”
