Chapter Two #2
“Gareth’s going to snap,” said a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize. One of the temps, maybe, brought in for the pre-event madness. “I give it a week. He’ll chew her up and spit her out like all the others.”
“Nah,” Maribel replied, her tone as casual as her knife skills. “You watch. This one’s different.”
“Different how? She’s got no pedigree. Half the time she looks like she’s about to faint.”
“That’s just nerves,” Maribel said. “Wolfe likes them nervous. Makes him feel like a goddamn Bond villain.”
The temp laughed. “She’ll be gone by Monday. Hundred bucks says so.”
“I’ll take your money,” Maribel said. There was a pause, then, “I’m telling you. He’s got a soft spot for this one.”
A soft spot.
I should have left then, but I didn’t. I hovered, listening, fists clenched at my sides like an idiot.
I could picture Maribel’s face, smug as ever, eyebrow arched as she chopped onions.
I could also picture Eden, sitting alone in her wolf-themed bedroom, probably reciting her own survival odds under her breath.
The idea that anyone would bet against her, bet against me, was intolerable.
I felt my jaw go tight, the familiar ache radiating up from my molars.
I wanted to march in, tell them both to shut up, then fire the temp on the spot.
But I didn’t. Instead, I stood in the dark hallway, breathing slow, until the voices faded and the topic shifted to someone else’s catastrophic love life.
When I finally pushed through the door, Maribel was alone, wiping down the marble with surgical precision. She looked up, caught my eye, and smiled that “I know everything” smile that drove me insane.
“Morning, Mr. Wolfe,” she said.
“Maribel.” I opened the fridge, took out a glass bottle of mineral water, and drank half of it in one go. I didn’t say a word about the conversation. Neither did she.
But I heard her hum, a little tune of victory, as I left. It was the same sound she made whenever a soufflé rose perfectly or a stray cat adopted the staff garden. She thought she’d won something. Maybe she had.
Back in the corridor, I stopped by the window and watched the wind rake through the roses. The house was built to keep people out. But for the first time in years, I wanted to keep someone in.
Let them bet against her. Against me. I’d see to it that Eden lasted longer than any of them could imagine.
I had no idea why it mattered. But it did.
Considering I had no meetings until noon, the amount of work I’d accomplished was abysmal.
Instead of working, I spent the next forty minutes rereading the same paragraph of a supply chain contract while my mind kept dragging me back to Eden’s blouse and the sound of Maribel’s voice calling me out as a man with a soft spot.
I didn’t have soft spots. I had weaknesses, and I dismantled them with efficiency and discipline. Or I used to. Was I slipping? Becoming weak?
My desk was in front of a window with a clear view of the conservatory, a glass-domed extravagance built by the previous owner to showcase his tropical plant obsession and give his wife somewhere to host illicit card games.
I’d kept it because I liked the way the sun heated the stone floor, even in winter, and because the plants never complained or asked for raises.
At this hour, the conservatory was a flood of light and shadow. Eden stood at its heart, surrounded by potted orchids and the wisteria, clipboard in hand.
She was talking to Leo Martin, my head groundskeeper and the only man on staff with more than a single tattoo.
Leo looked like a cross between a botanist and a surfer: tanned, tall, lean, with hands always dirty and a mouth full of plant trivia.
He was loyal and smart, but I didn’t like him.
He had a way of making himself at home wherever he went, and he treated the estate like a personal greenhouse.
Not only that, he got too attached to new hires, women, but I hadn’t caught him doing anything I could fire him for.
Right now, he was standing much too close to Eden.
Leaning in, talking low, gesturing to a spray of pale flowers at her ear.
She laughed at something he said, tilting her head back, and he touched her arm, just a guide, a point of emphasis, nothing technically inappropriate.
But I saw her flinch, just barely, and the primal part of my brain that still remembered childhood fistfights and boarding school politics flared to life.
I wanted to go down there, pull Leo aside, and remind him who paid his salary. More than that, I wanted to wrap a hand around his wrist, remove it from Eden’s arm, and ask if he enjoyed having opposable thumbs.
Instead, I watched. My teeth locked so tight my jaw ached.
I couldn’t look away from her, the way she scribbled something, nodded, let Leo point to another plant.
He was explaining something, probably the Latin name and its history, but Eden wasn’t really listening.
I knew that look; polite, focused, but miles away.
She had a trick of shutting off the noise and keeping the smile in place until she could escape.
She was going to get eaten alive by this place, I realized. If not by me, then by someone else.
My irritation with Leo shifted into something sharper and more uncomfortable. I told myself it was about loyalty, about maintaining order, about not letting the staff undermine the chain of command. But I knew it was simpler than that.
She made me want things I didn’t allow myself to want.
Leo pulled out his phone, showed her a photo, probably of a rare fern or an endangered bee. She laughed, and I gripped my pen hard enough to snap it. The ink bled across my palm and onto the desk blotter, a spreading black stain that looked a little like a Rorschach wolf.
If I kept watching, I’d do something stupid. Like go down there, interrupt, and make a scene that would end up in Maribel’s next betting pool.
So I made myself turn away, cleaned the ink from my hand, and tried to focus. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw her mouth, the gap in her blouse, the curve of her neck. I saw Leo’s hand on her arm, and the urge to intervene intensified.
By the time Eden left the conservatory, I’d abandoned all pretense of work.
I sat at the window, watched her stride across the lawn, shoulders squared, curls catching in the wind.
She looked back, once, toward the glass dome, then up at my office window.
I didn’t think she could see me, but for a second, I let myself believe she could.
I imagined calling her up. Sitting her down in front of me, explaining in precise, clinical terms what I expected from her; focus, discretion, unwavering loyalty. No fraternizing with staff. No distraction. No softness.
But when I pictured her across from me, hands folded and mouth set, all I wanted was to pull her onto my lap and see if she’d resist.
I was fucked.
There was, at least, one ironclad rule protecting both of us, the NDA. I’d written it myself, with clauses so restrictive even my own lawyers thought I was overdoing it. No entanglements, no drama, no crossing lines with anyone in my direct employ. It was clear, unbreakable, absolute.
If I touched her, I’d be breaking my own law.
But then I remembered the way she’d looked at me in the study, the flash of challenge in her eyes, the careful restraint in every answer she gave.
I wondered how long it would take before one of us snapped.
Before the desk, the rules, the entire illusion of order collapsed and I let myself want her, just once.
Until then, I’d watch. And I’d wait.
And I’d make damn sure no one else got there first.