Page 15 of Remington’s Mate

She and the elephant stared each other down until Sutcliffe walked back in, with a tall, gorgeous, charismatic, dominant-as-fuck blond man following him. Artfully tousled hair, gray eyes like rain on water, and a suit and tie that managed to look natural on him without concealing his sheer physicality.

All Jaeda’s senses went on high alert, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Shifter.

Even worse, she knew him.

Sutcliffe said, “Jaeda, this is our candidate for the Project Manager’s position.” He smirked at her, his eyes cold. “His name is Colton McCall.”

Chapter 7

Fate sucks brass balls, Jaeda thought. That is all.

Because the wolf gods had to be fucking with her. Not only had a damn freaking shifter just waltzed into her already problematic human job like he belonged there, but it was one of the McCall twins of the Bad Blood Crew, who had been nothing but trouble since the day they were born.

Sutcliffe was saying, “McCall, this is my assistant, Jaeda Harris. Anything you need, she’ll get it for you.”

She saw Colton’s eyes widen just a fraction in surprise, and she thought, Oh, shit, he knows me by my real name. She just hoped he wasn’t stupid enough to blurt it out.

She stepped forward and shook his hand. The carpet must have been full of static, because she felt an electric shock when she touched him.

His handclasp felt familiar, just like his height and presence and confidence felt familiar. She’d grown up surrounded by large, gorgeous men filled with dominant presence. Although, none of them smelled as amazing as Colt did right now. She’d kill for whatever body wash he used.

Next to him, Sutcliffe looked like a pale copy of a man. No wonder it had been so hard for her to date humans.

Colt said, “Good to meet you, Ms.—Harris, did you say?”

“That’s right.” Apparently he could read the ‘I will kill you if you out me’ warning in her eyes, because he gave no indication they’d ever met before.

She took the employment forms Colt had brought with him and got the two of them seated in Sutcliffe’s office—Sutcliffe in the power position behind his desk, and Colt in the slightly lower guest chair in front of it, designed to make guests feel small and unimportant.

It had no noticeable effect on Colt—his size and presence still outshone Sutcliffe’s. She just hoped her boss didn’t realize it. She already knew he didn’t like being outshone.

Jaeda went over to the coffee cart and prepared to serve them coffee and pastries, asking Colt how he liked his coffee. Cream and three sugars. Bleah. Might as well freeze it and make it ice cream.

Sutcliffe liked his coffee served in china cups from an ornate old-fashioned sterling silver coffee urn, because he was a pretentious son of a bitch. If he ever told her to polish the urn, she was done. It had too many damn curlicues.

Blocking Sutcliffe’s view with her body, Jaeda whipped her spare pen out of the inside pocket of her blazer and wrote on one of the dainty fucking party napkins Sutcliffe was so fond of.

What are you DOING here?

She handed it to Colt, tucked underneath the saucer of his fancy china coffee cup, and then served Mr. Sutcliffe.

She went back and got the plate of pastries. Also on expensive china. Colt took two. “Thank you, Jaeda. These look delicious.” Greedy bastard.

He looked up at her with those unusual gray eyes. She didn’t remember ever noticing how pretty the twins’ eyes were before. Probably she’d been distracted by the same exact ‘I’m about to fuck with you’ expression he was wearing now.

He handed his coffee cup back to her, his smile flirtatious and sexy as hell. Bastard. He said, “Could I trouble you for a touch more cream?”

He was handing her back the napkin along with the cup and saucer, she noticed.

“Certainly, Mr. McCall,” she purred. “It’s no trouble at all.”

She saw Sutcliffe’s eyebrows lift the slightest bit. He thinks I’m flirting with Colt, she realized. Well, it’s a good cover for why we can’t fucking stop staring at each other.

Back at the coffee urn, she saw that Colt had somehow managed to write a reply on his napkin while neither she nor Sutcliffe was watching. She hadn’t even seen him get out a pen.

INVESTIGATING was written above her message. Below, he’d replaced the ‘What’ with ‘WTF’ and underlined ‘you.’ As in, what the fuck was she doing here.