“All of them. No more interviews. She’s the one.”
Whitfield opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He gathered his folders into a messy stack and left without another word.
I sat in my cracked chair and watched through the glass wall as Andrea crossed the open floor toward the elevator. She was a small figure in pink and white among the gray and navy of the office, and she moved with a sureness that had nothing to do with her size. She adjusted her blazer. Tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. The elevator arrived and she stepped inside. She turned around, and for one second, she looked in my direction.
Then the doors closed and she was gone.
I looked down at the armrest. The leather was warped where my fingers had dug in, and a crack ran through the wood frame underneath. Blood sat on the inside of my cheek from biting down on my own canines.
My wolf was howling.
I was in so much trouble.
1
— • —
Andrea
My alarm went off at 5:30 in the morning and I lay there staring at the ceiling for a full minute, seriously weighing the pros and cons of faking my own death.
Pros: no more data reports, no more grunting boss, no more heels before sunrise. Cons: rent existed, student loans existed, and my grandmother’s voice in my head sayingAndrea Marie Grey, you are not a quitterexisted.
The cons won. They always did.
I dragged myself out of bed, showered, dried my hair, put on a floral pink blouse and a flowy skirt that made me feel like a person instead of a corporate drone, and left for the office before the sun had fully committed to being up. Two years of working for Finneas Kingsley and my mornings started in the dark. That was just my life now.
The top floor of Kingsley Corp was quiet when I got there, which was normal because it was always quiet. This level belonged to Finneas and Finneas alone, with my desk stationed outside his office and a handful of conference rooms that only got used when someone was important enough to be summoned up here. The lights were still on their dim automatic setting and my heels echoed across the tile as I walked to my desk with my coffee, the sound bouncing off the walls in a way that made me feel like I was the only person alive at this hour, which I probably was, because no sane human woke up this early by choice.
The light in Finneas’s office was already on. Of course it was. The man beat me here every single morning no matter how early I showed up, and I was half convinced he just never left. Three used coffee cups were lined up on the edge of his desk, visible through the glass wall, with a fourth in his hand. I kept a mental tally because someone had to, and it certainly wasn’t going to be him.
I set my bag down, turned around, and saw it.
A stack of files thick enough to use as a doorstop, sitting dead center on my desk. A sticky note on top in Finneas’s sharp handwriting:Tomorrow. No excuses.
I picked up the stack and flipped through the first few pages. Then the next few, and a few more after that, just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, because this was a week’s worth of data compilation. A full week. And he wanted it by tomorrow.
I grabbed the files and walked into his office without knocking.
“This is a week’s worth of work.”
Finneas was behind his desk, dark hair slightly disheveled, stubble lining his sharp jaw, reading something on his screen without looking up. He was in a dark button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and he looked like he hadn’t slept, but somehow that just made his face more annoyingly angular. The man had no right looking that good at seven in the morning after what was clearly an all-nighter, and I resented him for it.
“Then work faster,” he said, still not looking at me.
“I’m one person, Finneas. One. Singular. I have two hands and one brain and there are only so many hours in a day.”
He looked up. Dark eyes, flat expression, jaw set. That look had a reputation on this floor and every floor below it. I’d seen grown men with MBAs stammer and backtrack under it. I’d watched a senior account manager physically take a step backward once when Finneas turned it on him during a budget review.
I had been immune to it since week three of my employment.
“You’ll have a master summary on your desk by end of day,” I told him, keeping my voice even. “The full detailed report will be done tomorrow. That is the best anyone could do with this timeline, and you know it.”
He held my gaze for three full seconds. Then he waved his hand, that sharp flick of his wrist that I’d learned over two years meantfine, do it your way, I’ll allow it.
I didn’t leave.
“Also, that’s your fourth cup of coffee and it’s not even ten.”
