The instant I sat, the games began.
Bennet launched first, voice oiled with regret. “Carrie, with all due respect, the market is moving against us. There’s talk—serious talk—of a hostile buyout.”
“Who’s talking?” I said.
He hesitated. “Marcus Ellery.”
Of course.
Lila cut in, tapping her phone. “We have three lawsuits filed in the past 48 hours. All nuisance suits, but they’ll tie up capital and resources.”
Evelyn Hart simply observed, eyes shuttered, hands folded. She was waiting to see who bled first.
Celia offered a weak smile. “We could try to smooth it over, host an industry dinner—remind everyone what Stillwater means to Kentucky.”
I almost laughed. “We’ll serve them up, all right.”
Shivs said nothing, but his presence was an exclamation point at my side. He rubbed his hands together, and moments later, his scent hit my senses. I breathed him in as if I were breathing in an expensive cologne. Then, I felt his presence on my skin, soft and stirring. What the fuck was he doing to me, and whynow? He watched me from the corner of his eye. He knew exactly what was going on with me.
I ran the meeting like a trial, cross-examining each exec, cutting off the dead wood and threats before they could metastasize. Every so often, I glanced at Shivs, felt the steadying heat of him. He watched me not like a subordinate, but like a partner in the foxhole. It made me braver than I had any right to be.
When it was over, when I’d finished gutting Bennet’s doom scenarios and Lila’s legal panic, I stood.
“Stillwater isn’t for sale,” I said. “Not now, not ever. Anyone who thinks otherwise can find the door.”
I looked at each of them in turn, daring a challenge.
They blinked first.
Afterward, the four execs filed out in silence. I let the hush settle, then let myself breathe.
Shivs leaned in. “You did good,” he said, voice pitched just for me. “They won’t see you coming.”
I looked at his hands, at the bruised knuckles and veins that pulsed under the skin. I wanted, for one brief and dangerous second, to reach out and touch them. Hell, I wanted to be like him. To have the wolf within. I remembered what happened to his cock when I was rubbing his fur, the shape of the thing at its base, how it reacted to me stroking his fur. I shook the thought from my mind.
“You okay?” he asked. “It’s like your mind went somewhere else.”
Hell yeah, it did.
I buttoned my jacket. “You’re coming with me to the distillery. I want eyes everywhere.”
He grinned, feral. “Wherever you go.”
In the hallway, I let him follow a step behind. But I felt his gaze on my back, tracking every movement. My skin tingled with it, alive in a way I hadn’t known in years.
We made it out to the driveway, the morning light now harsh and white, the bikes still lined up like sentinels. I opened the car door, paused with my hand on the frame.
“Get in,” I said.
Shivs chuckled. “I’m a biker. I’ll follow you on my bike.”
As I pulled out onto the road, I caught his profile in the side mirror—the green eyes, the jaw set for war, the half-healed wound on his neck.
I didn’t trust him.
But I wanted him beside me, every step of the way.
Shivs
