“Nothing will happen toyou, Gray.”
He was quiet again, and she thought he had probably decided to ignore her and her silly fears and go to sleep. He had nothing to worry about, for his name was over the door, and there would be no legacy of whispers that would trail after him, from courtroom to courtroom for the rest of his legal career.
“We can file a declaration with HR on Monday, Vanessa. Would that make you feel better? I really don’t know what else you want me to do. And you understand the filing with HR is basically filing to me, right? We’re making a declaration to the company, agreeing not to sue the company. You’re essentially agreeing that you will not suemeover me, and the rest of the partners will be made aware. That’s about the only official recourse there is, but if that’s what you want to do, that’s what we’ll do.”
She didn’t know why she’d asked the question, didn’t know what answer she had gone poking for, but that hadn’t been it. Filing a declaration with HR would make thingsofficial, official in the eyes of their coworkers, official together.And then what?The insidious little voice in her head asked.Caught. You’re not going to smell like prey very long, rabbit, not unless you keep running. He’s going to get bored. He’s going to find someone new to chase, something more exciting than what he has waiting at home.
They spent every moon together, the smell of him sending her heat into overdrive until he calmed the fire in her blood. She joined his family for brunch, had met Owen’s equally reserved girlfriend and Trapp’s human schoolteacher, had laughed with his mother, and parlayed with his father.
When she’d told him that night about her cousin's upcoming wedding, a cousin with whom she'd always been competitive, she was shocked when he’d agreed before she fully had the question out.
"Of course," he'd said seriously, leaning forward across the table, his dark brows drawn together, "family is important." He’d somehow managed to convince her family that she was the most brilliant legal mind in the city, had impressed her relatives and made her mother blush like a teenager, made her sparkle at his side until her mother had asked where she’d been hiding him and why on earth hadn’t she sealed the deal yet.
She attempted to take care of him, as much as he would let her when an aura hit without warning, and there was no place safer in the world than curled to his chest, wrapped in his arms.
She wasn’t quite sure how they’d gotten there, but it very nearly felt like a real, stable relationship, a notion that worried her as much as it thrilled. She loved having Grayson Hemming chase her, didn’t ever want him tostopchasing her, and she didn’t want him to start thinking of their time together as an entrapment. She tilted her head up, pressing a kiss to the base of his neck.
“You’re right. I don’t think that’s necessary. It seems silly to get HR involved in our private business. Like you said, the other partners have to be notified. It might make things awkward. We don’t have that sort of relationship, so there’s no need to blow it up into something it’s not. I just want to ensure we’re not doing anything stupid that will impact either of us down the road. I hate knowing people are whispering every time I walk into the room, but they’ll get bored eventually and move on to the next juicy bit of gossip.”
He said nothing for a long time, and she thought that perhaps he’d fallen asleep after all. She closed her eyes, rubbing her cheek against his chest, inhaling deeply. Somewhere along the line, he had started smelling like home. When it rumbled out of the darkness, his voice startled her, and her eyes popped open.
“I suppose that’s one point of view.”
He didn’t say anything further, and Vanessa forced her eyes shut, the insidious voice in her head receding, leaving behind the certainty that she had made a terrible misstep.
* * *
Chapter ten
Intheend,heboiled their relationship down to fifteen minutes, and she had no one but herself to blame. Fifteen-minute blocks of time, the way he organized his schedule; tiny hash marks that kept him on track, and she —they— had been allotted one little square.
She hadn’t realized anything was wrong. Work was out of control, consuming every waking minute of the day and the hours she was meant to be sleeping. One of the firm’s minor clients — one ofherclients — had taken their IPO public, becoming an overnight millionaire, and suddenly a handful of the people above her, senior associates and partners included, wanted to edge their way in, insisting the account needed tighter stewardship.
Her client, a young wolf in her twenties who had founded her own makeup line, had kiboshed their efforts. She didn’t want to deal with anyone except Vanessa and especially didn’t wantthatguy — pointing her long, manicured nail at Brock, who’d somehow slipped into the meeting —anywhere near her, the latter said with her nose wrinkling, winking at Vanessa once her back had turned. Grayson had remained blissfully absent for the entire debacle, and she’d handled it on her own. He had been absent for much of the month, she’d realized more than two weeks into it, shrugging it off, buoyed by her independent success. It might have seemed odd to outsiders, but he was in court constantly, and she was engaged in the big law race of billable hours, chained to her desk for much of the week.He’s as busy as you are, probably in court.
Her first clue should have been the apartment. He was having work done at the house, he’d muttered, and they’d spent their first full moon in Bridgeton in she couldn’t remember how long. She realized long after the fact that the work being done was a professional deep cleaning — every surface sanitized and steamed, the carpets and bedding and curtains, all of it — shampooed, disinfected, rugs beaten and washed, the contents of the linen closet and bathroom closet emptied and cleaned, leaving behind an empty sterility, devoid of her smell.
Not spending the day with his family after the moon had felt strange, but when he’d remained distracted and out-of-sorts, she’d begged off dinner, going back to her own apartment to catch up on some much-needed sleep, not realizing she should have been clinging to every moment, paying attention to his oddly somber, un-Grayson-like mood.
The schedule tap had appeared on her laptop calendar a week later, an hour or so after she’d first arrived at her desk, a fifteen-minute time slot. It was that fact that stuck in her throat for days and weeks afterward, keeping her company in the bath and in her empty bed. She had been there for six years, three of them with him. They had somehow managed to balance their working relationship and personal life together for three years, and it was only in the last five months that her co-workers had taken notice, an impressive feat, quite frankly.
“I wanted you to hear it from me. I’m speaking with all of the senior associates today, and an email will be going out to the staff later, but . . . I wanted you to hear it directly from me. Effective this afternoon, I’m no longer affiliated with this firm. My clients have already been redistributed, and I’m not taking any of them with me, so you don’t need to worry about any of your caseloads dropping. You’ll be running second on Hastings-Durning. Ekins will be overseeing, but you’ve always had a good relationship with him, so I don’t foresee there being any issue.”
It was a practiced speech, one he’d probably already given a dozen times in part and would do a dozen more times that day. Not one for a girlfriend or lover or whatever the hell she was.
“Did-did they fire you?! They couldn’t have, not without a vote! But-but your stake —”
“We’ve agreed to a buyout of my stake in the company.”
She reeled, unable to fully process his words. There was no way she would come in tomorrow and Grayson not be there, terrorizing some junior associate. She had to be dreaming.
“So what, you’re just . . . leaving? Retiring? You’re forty years old; what are you going to do, take up gardening?”
“I’m not retiring,” he scoffed. “Effective first of next month, I’ll be chief internal counsel for the Werewolf Defense League. I’ll be transitioning into my role there in the interim.”
Vanessa sat back in her seat. She felt winded, as if she had just run up a steep staircase, racing away from a great beast nipping at her heels.
“You think you’ll be happy doing non-profit? What happened to having expensive tastes?”
