11. Brakkus
Brakkus
Iwalked into the kitchen the next morning, dressed in a suit and ready for work. I’d booked a full day after visiting Nadia’s closet. I’d taken time off since firing Brielle, and I’d decided it was high time to go back into work.
Hannah was at the table in a bathrobe with Otto next to her in the high chair. Her strawberry hair was up in a messy bun, and she was nursing a cup of coffee while Otto ate scrambled eggs from his tray. I crossed to the coffee maker and filled my travel mug. She turned to look at me and smiled.
“You look like a CEO this morning,” she said.
“I am a CEO,” I said, my mouth twitching into a grin.
She stood from her chair and walked over to the coffee maker. Her bathrobe had fallen open at the neck, and I could see the curve of her breast above the neck of her sleep tank.
She reached for the coffee pot and filled her mug. The smell of her unwashed body hit me like a truck. All sunshine and cotton candy. I sucked a breath through my teeth and took half a step back. She stirred cream and sugar into her mug and looked up at me over the rim as she took a sip.
“I just think of you as Otto’s dad,” she said. “I forget you’re a famous fighter and businessman.”
The smell of her pussy wafted up from under her bathrobe, and I wondered what she was wearing under there. Was it just underwear? Sleep shorts? What did her panties look like?
Then it registered. She was aroused. By me.
In orc form. Yesterday by the pool I’d smelled her arousal.
But I was in my human form and was, by all accounts, an attractive human.
I’d had humans tell me I could have been a male model.
Which was probably just an exaggeration.
But now I was standing in front of her as a brute in a suit.
“I don’t mind if you see me as just Otto’s dad,” I said, backing away and walking around the island. I kissed my son on the head in his high chair. The scent of Hannah wrapping around my head like a bandage. This was exactly why I was leaving the house today.
“I’m going into the office,” I said, looking past her. “You’ve got things handled here now.”
“Okay. Well, have a nice day at work,” she said, leaning against the counter with her coffee mug, strong legs bare under the bathrobe.
“Bye-bye, little brute. Behave for nanny while I’m gone.”
Otto slapped his tray and shoved egg into his mouth as he looked up at me. I gave him a little pat and turned toward the door, travel mug in hand.
When I sat behind the wheel of my G-Wagon, the engine rumbling, I tried to get a hold of myself. The scent of Hannah in my nose was crawling up into my brain. It was doing something to me. Something I didn’t want to face.
I knew that feeling. I’d felt it once before.
And taking in the scent of Nadia’s sweater last night reminded me exactly when and where.
But it couldn’t be happening. There was no way.
I mean, I’d heard about orcs having more than one fated mate.
Sometimes mates arrived together. Sometimes it happened after one orc had passed.
But it was rare. I’d heard the odds were like one in a hundred thousand.
Which wasn’t impossible, just highly improbable.
What was the likelihood it was happening to me?
There had to be another reason. I’d just lost my wife.
I’d been betrayed by the woman I’d trusted to care for my son.
And Hannah had passed all my tests and come out clean.
I was just learning to trust her. She was allowing me to go back into the office.
Otto was healing and progressing in his development again.
I was just feeling relief that I’d found a reliable nanny who would allow me to go back to work.
I pulled out of my parking spot and started down the driveway.
Not that Hannah wasn’t an attractive woman.
She was. A man would have to be blind not to see it.
But she was in fact a human. I could see the appeal of human women.
They were the typical beauty standard in the human world.
But I was an orc. I’d had an orc mate. I never would have seen myself being drawn to a human.
I’d never been attracted to Brielle. I just let her act like she was attracted to me.
I rubbed my hand over my face as I waited for the gate on my driveway to open. I was in over my head in this. And going into work was exactly what I needed to get my mind straight.
I drove into downtown Austin and past the Brute Squad building with the tusked-silhouette logo lit up along the tower face. Our flagship Brute Squad gym took up the bottom floor with a merch store attached. Corporate offices took up the floors above.
I parked my car in the lot behind the building and took the elevator up to the offices. When I stepped into reception, I was met by Trey who was ready to go over my schedule for the day.
We walked into my office, and I set my travel mug on the desk.
The glass walls overlooked the downtown Austin skyline.
Along one windowsill was a row of foam tusks in mismatched greens.
Tubs of Brute Fuel in every flavor sat on a table at the back of the room.
There was a mockup box for the upcoming Brute Squad Xbox game on my desk.
“We have a meeting to finalize the Brute Fuel rebrand at nine,” Trey said, scrolling on his tablet.
I checked my custom-made Rolex. It was fifteen to nine. “All right. Send in the marketing team at nine.”
I sat behind my desk and sipped my coffee, turning my computer on. I answered a few emails. Mari from marketing knocked on my door at nine. She’d been assigned to lead the Brute Fuel rebrand.
“We’re ready when you are,” she said.
“Come on in,” I said, waving in the team.
They took their seats around my office. Devin from design was holding a cardboard box under one arm. He began to unload mockup Brute Fuel tubs onto my desk.
“We finalized these designs from your notes.”
My snarling face was on every one, with FEED THE BEAST WITHIN stamped underneath, and each flavor in its own color: Skull-Cracker Chocolate in deep brown, Tusk-Punch Vanilla in bone white, Strawberry Slaughter in a hard-candy red.
“They look good,” I said, examining each one. Then my eyes snagged on 30G PROTEIN in small letters tucked under the logo.
“The protein callout is getting lost in the design.”
“We have that mocked up with a larger callout,” Mari said, pulling a sheet out of a file folder.
She set the glossy page in front of me on my desk. It was a mockup for the Skull-Cracker Chocolate label but with the protein callout in a large, bold font.
I looked at the two options side by side.
“The big one,” I said. “The protein content is our selling position.”
Mari nodded and wrote it down. “Then that’s everything. We’re clear to go to production.”
My eyes scanned the tubs again, just to check if my eyes still snagged on any other issues. My attention landed on Strawberry Slaughter and lingered for half a second. Hannah had said she’d buy that one.
“Good work. Keep me updated on production.”
The team packed up the tubs and mockups and left the room.
The thought of Hannah lingered in my mind after the door closed behind them. I picked up my phone and tabbed over to the security camera feeds live-streamed from the house monitors.
I scanned through the feeds and found her on the monitor in the nursery.
She’d changed into a T-shirt and shorts and was rocking Otto in the glider.
My eyes lingered on the shape of her legs in grainy black-and-white.
My lips curled back over my teeth. She wasn’t doing anything wrong.
She was doing everything right. Why did I feel this way?
It could NOT be what my body was trying to suggest. I just didn’t believe it.
For the next several days, I kept my distance.
I left quickly in the morning and stayed at the office late.
Part of me felt guilty for not being there for my son, but Hannah did have it handled.
I watched her every day on the home security cameras.
All I knew was that I couldn’t be around her.
I couldn’t be in that house with her scent circling around my brain, reminding me of what it was like to meet my fated mate the first time.
I could not accept that it was happening.
There had to be a mistake. Hannah had gone from the too-good-to-be-true nanny to something else entirely.
Something I didn’t even want to fathom. If I took her at face value, she was a competent, caring, beautiful woman.
She was fantastic with Otto. She brought life to the house in a way that I hadn’t felt since Nadia died.
Any man would be lucky to have her. That wasn’t the issue.
She was really a perfect woman. But how could she be a perfect woman for me?
And why was she coming into my life now?
I was sitting in my office staring at the nanny cam when Trey came in to go over next week’s schedule.
He started going over my planned meetings, but my eyes kept going to my phone.
“Brakkus? Do you want to set up a call with the Costco execs to finalize store placement on Monday?”
“Whatever works,” I muttered, staring at Hannah bending over to pick up a stuffed orc toy from the floor of the nursery. Her perfect ass was in the air and my lower half stirred.
“Brakkus? Hello?”
“Yes. What?” I said, my attention snapping back to Trey.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes, of course.”
“No, you aren’t. I’ve known you since you were an up-and-coming brawler in the M.A.U.L. Your focus is legendary. You are not focused.”
“I am.”
Trey stood up and peeked behind the finalized Brute Fuel tubs on my desk and spotted what I was looking at on the phone.
“You’re still spying on the nanny?” he said, sitting back down across from me.
“No…” I lied.
“I thought we put this to rest. Her background check came back clean. She’s a highly trained professional you can trust. I understand that you’re still grieving, Brakkus, but your head’s not in the game.”
I clicked off the phone. “I am. I’m here.”
“If you need more time off…”
“I need to work. This is my company.”
“I get the sense something else is going on. Care to share? We are family.”
I sighed, scrubbing my hand down my face.
I couldn’t tell Trey what I suspected about Hannah.
I’d just suspected her of being a grifter a week ago.
And now I was going to tell him I suspected she could be my second fated mate.
No. That would make me sound crazy. Maybe I needed to visit the healer to have my head examined. Grief could do weird things to a man.
“I’m fine, Trey. Just leave it.”
“Okay,” he said, standing. “I’ll finalize this schedule and you can approve or disapprove it by the end of business today. I’m not going to push you if you don’t want to be pushed.”
“There’s nothing to push about.”
“Sure,” he said, giving me a sarcastic smile before turning to go.
I sighed and sat back in my chair, feeling like a fool. I’d built this company from nothing. As a kid from the Breakstone enclave in an era where monsters were barely tolerated. I’d built my way up from my first gym back in Breakstone to a global empire today.
I’d mated and married the love of my life. An upper-class princess from an old blood family. Together, we’d been blissfully happy. We had a son. A little boy with my nose and her eyes. A boy who would carry on both of our legacies. And then I lost her. When I lost her, I felt I’d lost everything.
I stood and looked out the window at the fading daylight over the Austin city skyline.
I thought about Hannah at home with Otto.
Her bright smile and sunny disposition. The way she took everything in stride.
The smell of her. The way she seemed to settle a room just by breathing.
She radiated joy and comfort in a way that gave me so much subtle contentment, I didn’t want to admit it to myself.
I couldn’t. So, for now, I’d just avoid having to.