Page 46 of Remington’s Mate

Chapter 18

Ten minutes after Remy left, Sutcliffe walked out of his office and dumped a foot-high stack of thick three-ring binders on Jaeda’s desk, informing her that he needed sixty-three copies of each one by tomorrow, for a meeting that she knew damn good and well didn’t exist.

That was enough copying to keep her here until midnight. Wow. He really did not like the idea of her having sex with Remy.

Or maybe he was beginning to suspect they were working together against him.

It was a petty form of punishment, but Jaeda knew better than to underestimate him based on that. Both his ego and his illegal operation were potentially threatened. That made him dangerous.

If it weren’t for the keylogger, she’d tell him to screw his copies, and leave. But if he stayed, and left his laptop unattended for even ten minutes, she could install the keylogger tonight. Then if he fired her—or she had to quit—at least they’d have a good chance of still getting their evidence.

“I’ll get right on it, Mr. Sutcliffe,” she said. “I don’t need food or sleep. It’s all good.”

She’d given up holding back the snarkiness. Since she was planning to put him in jail, she was never going to get a promotion or a job recommendation out of him anyway. The upside was that her attitude didn’t matter anymore.

The copying work was easy to the point of mind-numbing, feeding section after section of pages into the copier, waiting for them to run, and laying them out on the empty desks. She had to do every section seven times because the copier would only collate ten sections at once.

Sutcliffe did stick around, but for the first few hours he didn’t leave his office even to go to the bathroom. He ordered dinner in—for himself, not her—and had Fernandez bring it up.

Jaeda’s stomach was growling—all she’d had since lunch was a breakfast bar from her snack stash. But she didn’t dare leave, even to get food, and miss an opportunity to get to Sutcliffe’s computer.

When Fernandez passed by her desk, though, he dropped a brown bag on the chair before taking Sutcliffe his food. As he left, he jerked his head toward it and said, “Have a nice evening, Ms. Harris.”

Inside the bag was a roast beef sandwich, chips and a Pop Tart.

Huh. Never underestimate the power of toaster pastries.

At 9:45 Jaeda was in the storeroom, rooting around for another carton of three-hole-punch copy paper, when she heard footsteps behind her.

They were followed by the sharp snick of the door latching. Jaeda straightened up slowly, turning around just in time to see Ethan Sutcliffe kick a rubber doorstop into the crack under the door.

So it couldn’t be opened from the outside. And so it would take longer to open it from the inside.

Her boss had his jacket and tie off and his sleeves rolled up. He was radiating anger, and a kind of sick excitement.

“What do you want?” she asked, and watched the direction of his eyes. If he looked at her boobs or her crotch, he was going for sexual assault. If he kept his eyes on her face, he only wanted to hurt her. ‘Only.’ Hah.

There were no security cameras in the storeroom. He thought he was safe.

He was about to find out differently.

Sutcliffe said, “I warned you that I expected complete loyalty from my employees. And yet, the first thing you do is start fucking around with one of my underlings.” His gaze dropped to her crotch.

And the winner is… sexual assault. Get ready.

He went on, “I think it’s time you understood what loyalty means.”

She wondered suddenly if Olivia Nardone had stood in this very spot, watching in terror as Sutcliffe came at her. Unable to protect herself, because she didn’t know how.

Jaeda had tried so hard to leave the shifter world behind, thinking the human world would be better. Less crazy. More normal.

She’d never appreciated what her family and her pack had given her. Not just love and protection, but confidence and faith in herself—and skills that stayed with her wherever she went.

As Ethan Sutcliffe closed in on her—slowly, menacingly—Jaeda expected anger to course through her.

But what she felt was gratitude, for the gifts of her pack.

How to deflect an attack from a larger, stronger opponent? Thanks, Dad.