Chapter Two
Gareth
I preferred the east study at dusk, when the last clean shafts of light cut low through the windows and gave the room a glow like a burnished coin; gold, but only if you looked from the right angle. There was order here.
The scent of old leather and polished wood, the silence that came when you invested in triple-paned glass, were designed the way they were for a reason.
Even the books on the shelves lined up like troops, no one volume ever out of line for more than a day. I’d chosen the desk myself; hand-rubbed mahogany, three inches thick, four feet wide, a slab so heavy that movers swore at me in three languages just getting it up the stairs.
Today, of all days, I needed something solid.
The only thing more unmovable was the headache gathering at the base of my skull, courtesy of the five unread contracts glaring from my inbox.
That, and the unwelcome certainty that I was about to let a woman I couldn’t stop thinking about disrupt my hard-won order.
The woman in question knocked at exactly 7:01 a.m. One minute late. Not terrible, but enough for me to note it. I schooled my face into neutrality, made sure my email drafts were saved for later, and called out, “Enter.”
Eden Blake. Her resume had been an exercise in contradictions: overqualified, under-ambitious, suspiciously single, but with references that all but bled loyalty.
On paper, she was what I needed. In practice, she was a fucking disaster.
Not in the way you’d expect, a disaster for all mu suit zippers.
She was quiet, unignorable, and impossible to look away from.
She swept into the study in black slacks and a silky blue blouse that fit properly, but was somehow worse than her previous too-small shirt.
The color brought out the green in her hazel eyes, and her red-orange curls were escaping her braid to frame her face.
She carried a blue hardback binder under her arm, and when she set it on my desk, the smell of her perfume hit me so hard I nearly recoiled.
I was prepared for a lot of things. I was not prepared for how immediately, and completely, my body would betray me.
“Good morning, Mr. Wolfe.” Her tone was crisp, professional, but I heard the crackle under it. She was nervous. The knowing kind of nervous that would either break in her favor or combust spectacularly.
“Gareth. Good morning, Ms. Blake,” I said, and gestured at the chair opposite. “You survived your first night. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I only got lost twice.” She opened the folder, fingers nimble.
I noted the nails; short, clean, painted a colorless gloss.
No rings, but her fingers were slim and pretty.
Since when did I notice pretty hands? “You said you wanted preliminary options for the reunion event. I’ve pulled together some-”
“Yes.” I cut her off, not because I was bored, but because she’d leaned forward as she spoke, and the second button of her blouse looked dangerously close to giving up. I was sure she could feel me staring; I was equally sure she was pretending not to.
She laid out three sheets in a fan. “Option one is traditional, with white flowers and a plated dinner. Option two-” She tapped it, and the movement left the fabric of her shirt gaping between the buttons.
I could see the creamy skin and the curve of her breast into a black lacey bra.
My blood pressure, already north of acceptable, kicked up another five points.
“-is more modern, with passed small plates and live music. Option three-”
I did not care what option three was. All I could see was the pulse at her throat, thumping fast, the same rhythm I felt in my own wrists.
I watched her mouth as she spoke: full, plush, beautiful.
She pulled her lip into her teeth, unconsciously, and my hands, calloused, dangerous, gripped the edge of the desk so hard I expected the wood to splinter.
Get a grip, I told myself. She’s your employee, not your plaything. You hired her for her brain, not-
My mind short-circuited as she leaned closer, flipping a page, and the third button actually did pop open. Not catastrophically. She caught it with a thumb, smoothed it shut, then kept right on talking as if nothing had happened.
But worse, I could see down her shirt now. I saw the outline of her breast, pale and perfect, cradled into her bra. In that instant, I knew exactly how soft her skin would be under my hands.
I was going to hell.
She looked up. “Are you listening?”
“Of course,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what she’d just proposed. Option four? Arson? A seance? “Go on.”
She hesitated, then drew a deep breath that made her chest lift, and I nearly groaned aloud.
“You said you wanted efficiency. My pitch is to combine the traditional with the modern; keep the formal seating, but do a tasting menu instead of a plated course. That way you get the best of both. People can move around, interact. It’s less rigid.
More-” She searched for a word, and I watched her tongue dart to the edge of her teeth, pink and quick. “-alive.”
Alive was not the word I would have chosen for my current state, but I nodded, grateful for the distraction. “That’s…not terrible.”
She grinned. I’d meant it as a compliment, but she seemed to know better. “High praise.”
I cleared my throat, which was suddenly thick. “What’s your budget breakdown?”
She launched into numbers, percentages, logistical minutiae.
I tried to follow, but the only numbers I could focus on were the inches separating us and the fractions of skin she kept accidentally revealing.
She wasn’t a seductress. That was the worst part.
She was doing none of this on purpose; she was just…
real. Open in a way I hadn’t been around in years.
I pictured myself reaching across the desk and catching her wrist, pulling her body down on the desk.
Her papers would scatter, and she’d gasp, but not pull away.
I’d push down her pants and her panties, and bury myself in her, kiss my way down the line of her collarbone, taste the salt and the softness and the way she’d tremble under my hands.
She’d dig her nails into the desk, hard, perfect, and I’d fuck her right there, bent over the portfolio of her own making, until she was breathless and spent and dripping our juices.
The vision was so vivid, so physical, that for a split second I thought I’d actually done it. I blinked, and the fantasy flickered away, replaced by her actual face; flushed, focused, waiting for a response.
I had to shift in my seat. There was no way she hadn’t noticed. But if she did, she was too professional to let it show.
“Is there a problem?” she asked, cocking her head. The motion dislodged a stray hair that fell across her brow. I wanted to brush it away with my thumb, then draw her mouth to mine and taste the coffee on her breath.
I shook my head, careful not to trust my voice. She waited another beat, then gathered her pages, the motion making her blouse gap again, and I resigned myself to a permanent state of low-grade agony and raging hard-ons.
“Thank you for your time,” she said, stacking her things. “I’ll circulate revised plans by end of day. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”
There was so, so much else. But I said nothing, only watched as she walked out, back ramrod-straight, pace brisk. I waited until the door clicked shut, then exhaled for what felt like the first time in ten minutes.
My cock was rock hard, and trying its hardest to knock on the other side of the desk and beg for escape.
For a moment I considered the shame of it, the patheticness of a grown man undone by a woman with a decent mind and a slightly too-small blouse.
But then I remembered the way she’d looked at me, really looked, not just as a boss but as a challenge, and I felt something I didn’t like.
Uncontrollable hunger.
I stayed seated until I could trust I wouldn’t give some poor staff member a heart attack.
Then I got up, crossed to the window, and looked down at the garden below.
Eden was there, sunlight catching the gold in her hair, talking to one of the grounds crew.
She gestured with her hands as she spoke, animated, alive in a way I’d never let myself be.
If I had any sense, I’d fire her on the spot. But I didn’t. I had none.
I turned away from the window, forced my mind to silence, and got back to work.
Needing to cool down, I waited a full ten minutes before I dared leave my office.
Even then, I took the back stair, just in case Eden was still prowling the main hallways.
I needed a cold drink, anything to clear the residual haze from my head, and the kitchen was the only place in the house with both ice and a halfway functional human presence.
The corridor that led to the kitchen was long and unkind to the claustrophobic.
Floor-to-ceiling paneling, stained so dark it was almost black, with sconces every six feet that gave the illusion of warmth but mostly made the shadows more complicated.
This wing was my favorite. No family photographs, no art except for the antique hunting prints I’d inherited against my will, and the occasional wolf carving tucked into the crown molding.
It was as close to privacy as you could get in a house this size.
The only downside was that every sound carried.
I was twenty feet from the kitchen door when I heard voices.
Not raised, but lively, the cadence of gossip.
I slowed my pace, because if I walked in on Maribel mid-story, she’d make a production of greeting me and that was embarrassing, even if she meant well.
Better to let her finish, get the drink, and retreat before she noticed.
But then I heard my name.