She smiles widely. A real smile that reaches her green eyes. As if she’s actually happy to see me. “Good morning, love.”
I’m not a nickname kind of person, but from her it feels remarkably natural. “Hey.” I hesitate. Should try to explain why I wasn’t there when she woke up?
But it seems to be a moot point. Monroe loops her arm through mine and turns us toward the door. “It seems the baby Paine has drawn the short straw of delivering us today. Poor thing.”
Sure enough, Gabriel is in the courtyard, standing next to one of the identical trucks we use to get around. He nods at me, though his gaze flicks to where Monroe is plastered to my side. I open the door for her and raise my brows at him. “I would think you’d be with Fallon.” Like Monroe, as heir, she gets to travel to and from the Mystic’s faction to work during the day.
“We needed a break.” His tone discourages me from asking more questions. I still don’t understand why Abel gave Fallon to Gabriel, of all his brothers. He’s twenty-seven, so he’s hardly a baby, but he’s been sheltered to some degree in the way the other Paine brothers haven’t. And, best I can tell, Fallon is fucking feral. She’s like some wolf you’d find in the mountains, cold and predatory and all too willing to rip out your throat if you infringe on her territory.
I hate to say it, but Gabriel is outmatched.
The trip across the river into Amazon territory passes in uncomfortable silence. For once, Monroe doesn’t seem interested in poking at me and flirting; she’s too busy thinking. Or maybe things have changed after last night, and this is just the first indication of it.
I don’t like the pang that goes through me at the thought. While I can’t deny that things weren’t working before, I’ve come to value my time with Monroe. I don’t want to lose it.
I manage to keep my silence until we’re in the elevator up to Monroe’s office, but once the doors close, the words spill out. “Are you mad at me?”
Her surprise doesn’t appear feigned at all. “What? Why would I be mad at you?”
“Because I slept on the couch last night after…what happened. And left this morning before you woke up.”
She blinks and then laughs. “Shiloh, you’re not the first skittish person I’ve seduced.” Her smile warms me right through. “To be clear, I am seducing you. Present tense.”
I blink. “What?”
She catches my hand and flips it over to run her nails lightly over my wrist. “That is, if you want me to.” She steps closer. Not quite close enough to be inappropriate, but she’s certainly in my space. Monroe looks up at me. “Do you want me to seduce you, love?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
She doesn’t move. “Even if that means Broderick is involved?”
My body flushes hot and then cold. I was so incredibly reckless last night, but I can’t quite bring myself to regret it. “He’s my best friend. I don’t want to ruin that.” I don’t mean to say it, but I don’t mean to say a lot of things when it comes to Monroe. She has this way of pulling back my layers and shining the light on the parts of me I keep close to my heart. It’s unnerving in the extreme.
“You won’t,” she answers so easily, I almost believe her.
It’s tempting, so goddamned tempting, to tell her that I don’t want Broderick to be involved. I can’t be that selfish, though. Not only would it be a lie, but it would ultimately endanger Monroe herself. She and Broderick need to figure things out in order to preserve peace. That is more important than anything, even my potential heartbreak.
It’s just sex.
No reason to complicate things more simply because I’m scared.
I swallow hard. “Then yes, even if it means Broderick’s involved.” A small part of me can’t help wondering if maybe blowing up our old friendship is the only way to fix it. I miss him. I miss him showing up, seemingly at random, during my night shifts sometimes, and keeping me company. I miss the long meandering conversations we used to have, ones about everything and nothing, but felt so fucking safe because Broderick always cared about what I had to say. I miss the movie nights, and the after-shift drinks, and having him drag me to some hole in the wall pub he discovered.
I just flat out miss him.
“It’s hard when a friendship jumps the tracks and you don’t know how to get it back, isn’t it?”
The question sounds sincere enough, so I answer honestly. “It’s the worst.”
“Stick with me, love. We’ll figure it out.”
The elevator doors open before I can summon a response, which is just as well. Falling to my knees and begging her to touch me so I can stop thinking so fucking hard about things best left alone is out of the question. I manage to hold it together as I follow Monroe out of the elevator and down the hall to her office.
We barely get a chance to settle in before her mother arrives.
It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen her in the last two weeks; Aisling Rhodius is a terrifying woman. On the surface she’s no different than any other posh CEO with expensive style and a ton of money invested in her appearance. But beneath? Every time she looks at me, I can practically see her categorizing all the ways she can kill me with the fountain pen in her hand. She wouldn’t hesitate, wouldn’t blink, and once she’d taken me
