Epilogue
Claudia
Group Text Started by Yasmine
Group renamed to Brat Chat
Yasmine
I’ve decided it isn’t fair that the guys get a group chat and we don’t.
Jennifer
Ooooooh, you’re gonna be in trouuuuuble!
Yasmine
Claudia can’t be mean to me. I got shot.
Cassidy
You know, eventually you’re not going to be able to use that anymore.
Yasmine
But today is not that day.
Naomi
I’m pretty sure it will always work on me.
Audrey
That was not your fault any more than it was Cassidy’s fault about David.
Cassidy
Logically, I know that. Emotionally…
Naomi
Preach, sister.
Audrey
Just one rule… please, for the love of all that is holy, do NOT include my grandmother in this chat.
Cassidy
Seconded.
Yasmine
I can agree to that. She’s already part of one with Sarah, Grace, Karen, and Mary.
Cassidy
She is? Oh, thank God. I was worried she was sexting Mick again. She’s been on her phone like nonstop, and I have seen things I can never bleach from my eyes.
Audrey
Stop! I don’t want to know!
Claudia
I hate all of you.
Setting her phone to Do Not Disturb, Claudia set her jaw as she considered getting a new phone number. The elevator doors opened in front of her, and she got off. Behind the glass, Jennifer looked up, met her gaze, and immediately ducked her head back down. As if that helped anything.
God, Claudia hated group chats. Now she was in two of them, both non-work chats. Which meant they would be constantly chatting. And if she didn’t keep up with them, everyone would know things she didn’t. Which meant she couldn’t leave either of them. She hated not knowing things.
Mother fucker.
This was all Mason’s fault.
Shoving open the door, Claudia stalked through the lobby, past Jennifer at the desk. The younger woman lifted her head tentatively.
“Um, Claudia—”
“Not now.” Claudia cut her off, holding up her hand as she walked by.
“I don’t want to hear it right now.” It wasn’t Jennifer’s fault, and she’d even been the one to point out they were going to be in trouble for starting the group chat, but right now she was guilty by association.
Still, it wouldn’t be fair to take it all out on her.
“It’s not about—”
“Not now!” Turning the corner, Claudia kept stalking down the hall, wishing that she had her heeled boots. And a crop. Something she could hit somebody with.
She paused outside Mason’s office, but he wasn’t there for once. Lucky bastard.
Which, of course, just meant her irritation kept growing without anywhere to go. Nothing to focus it on. Maybe she should go to the club tonight. Take it out on some eager submissive who would thank her for the privilege afterward. It had been a while since she’d done a scene. It couldn’t hurt.
Her door was closed, which was the way she liked it, whether or not she was in the office. Claudia barely paused as she gripped the knob and shoved it open, walking through it as quickly as she’d been walking down the hallway.
And grinding to a halt when someone stood up from one of the chairs in front of her desk.
Suddenly, Jennifer's trying to talk to her made a lot more sense.
Claudia scowled at Ian Black, who grinned back at her.
The same grin that had been making girls and women swoon since high school.
The same grin that had caused countless numbers of panties to drop.
The same grin that had given her a wildly inappropriate crush when she was sixteen and he was fourteen.
She’d gotten over that. Mostly. And she sure as hell had never let him or Miguel know that she’d ever been attracted to him.
First of all, because he and Miguel were more than best friends, they were practically brothers, and second of all, because Ian had never looked at her that way in his life, and she had her fucking pride.
Join the countless throngs of women he slept with and discarded? No thanks.
“Claudia,” he said by way of greeting, smoothing his hands over his dark grey pinstripe suit.
Blond hair waved back from his face, perfectly placed.
His clean-cut jaw was entirely stubble-free, ensuring that both the little indent in his chin and his dimples could be clearly seen.
Hazel eyes focused so intently on her, it could fool a girl into thinking she was the only person in the world he could possibly look at like that.
“Ian.” Her voice was short, clipped. Apparently, today wasn’t annoying enough. Now, she had to deal with her little brother’s best friend, too. “What are you doing here?”
Ian walked forward. He was about six inches taller than her when she was in flats, and she was almost always in flats, which was extremely annoying when she had to tilt her head back to look at him.
“I’m here because I need to ask you a very important question.”
If there was something wrong with Miguel, Claudia would already know, so it couldn’t be about that.
And while Ian seemed a little more tense than usual, he wasn’t panicked.
She frowned at him, raising her eyebrows and pretending it didn’t bother her that he was now looking down at her.
She put her hands on her hips and glared up at him.
“I’m already having a shitty morning, Ian. Don’t drag things out. Just ask whatever it is you need to ask and then get out of here.”
The lazy smile that curved his lips did not make her heart do an extra beat. Or warm her insides. Or make her stomach flutter.
“Very well.” Ian dropped to one knee, smoothly pulling out a tiny black box from his pocket at the same time.
Claudia stared at him as he lifted it in one hand, opening it with the other, and a radiant sparkle of a very large, very real diamond bloomed in front of her gaze.
“Claudia Maria Delgado… will you marry me?”
Mistress Claudia and Ian will return in Whips and Weddings!