Page 11 of Howl Lotta Love

“You’ll send someone to water my plants.” She said it dry, testing the sentence for ridiculousness out loud, and came up satisfied that it delivered. “That’s not the point, and you know it.”

“The point is you’re a target, and your building’s security is a joke. Diesel could get through that lobby in under a minute without breaking a sweat, and Diesel thinks a challenge is a childproof cap.”

“I’m not abandoning my life over a text message and a bad driver.”

“You’re not abandoning anything.” He planted both hands on the desk between them, leaning in until looking anywhere else took actual effort on her part. “You’re relocating because the alternative is finding out what comes after the text message and the bad driver, and I’m not running that experiment with you as the results. Someone cloned your files. Someone drove a van at you on a public street. Someone knows your face and your schedule. That’s not paranoia.”

“You have a very grim outlook.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“So I hire an alarm system.”

“You hire me.” It came out rougher than he meant it, low enough that his own chest reacted before his brain did. His wolf had already marked the matter closed—Emma, in the building, within reach, ideally by morning, consent a technicality it had no interest discussing. The rest of him understood, with real irritation, that consent was not, in fact, a technicality. “Twenty-two people already vetted and paid for. You don’t have to like it. You only have to survive long enough to complain about it.”

“Convenient argument, coming from the man doing the hiring.”

“Didn’t say it was fair. Said it was correct.”

Emma’s eyes narrowed—the same look she’d aimed at his website an hour ago, the one she reserved for auditing a man for fraud. “You know what the last man who used the words for your protection meant by them?”

Jace went still. Her voice had dropped out of the argument completely, gone flat in a way he recognized because he’d used it himself, on people who’d survived things nobody deserved to.

“He meant stay small.” No performance in it. “He meant don’t make decisions I haven’t signed off on. He kept right on meaning it, too, until the day I made one he hadn’t approved—and then he meant a considerably uglier thing, and called that protecting me as well.” Chin up, voice steady even though the rest of her wasn’t. “So forgive the reflex.”

The argument between them ran out of air all at once. Jace came around to her side of the desk—not toward her exactly, only close enough that the space between them stopped being a negotiating tool for either of them.

“That’s not what this is.”

Low. Meant, in a way that unsettled him a little, because he’d known this woman two days and already couldn’t stomach being lumped in with whoever taught her that exact brace.

She studied his face, checking it the way she’d check a column of figures for errors. Didn’t find any. He watched some of the fight drain out of her shoulders without any of the spine going with it.

“Most people say that and mean it for about a week.”

“I’m not most people.”

“No.” Her eyes flicked away and came back guarded. “I’m starting to notice.”

“I still have terms.”

“I’d be worried if you didn’t.”

An administrative assistant’s voice came through the phone speaker. “Sir, you’re wanted in the conference room.”

They never got to the terms, because Jace headed for the conference room. Emma fell in half a step behind him, and he walked straight into an ambush he hadn’t seen coming, which almost never happened and which he intended to remain furious about for a full week.

Gerri stood at the head of the conference table as if she’d always been part of the furniture, white hair immaculate, eyes gone gold with delight—she’d been orchestrating this exact moment. Roman, Tucker, and Milo were already seated, traffic-cam stills frozen on the wall screen, and all three of them looked up when Jace and Emma walked in, still radiating the argument they’d left behind in his office.

“Wonderful.” Gerri clasped her hands, beaming at them both, every bit as proud as if she’d personally engineered every second of it. “It’s about time. The engagement party is next week.”

The room went off like a grenade.

Roman shot up, cheering. Milo had his phone out and was typing with the focused urgency of a man watching an investment mature, muttering odds under his breath that had apparently paid off for the second time that week. Tucker, without glancing up from his laptop, said, “The Plaza does a Tuesday rate,” which meant he’d had that shortlist ready since roughly the ballroom.

“We are not engaged,” Emma said to a room that had already stopped listening.

“Caterer’s booked.” Gerri typed on her phone, reciting from a script only she could see. “Small guest list, obviously—can’t go public with a threat still active—but the announcement does the real work. Paranormal community believes you’re a couple; nobody blinks at Jace standing three feet from you every hour of every day. Suspicious becomes romantic. It’s efficient.”