And when she really scraped down to the heart of things, she hadn’t let him in very far either. She’d not brought him home to meet her family, had never alluded that she was seriously involved with anyone. The thought of admitting aloud for the whole world to hear that she had begun a sexual

relationship with her boss made her skin crawl. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t bear the smell of other men, an affliction that had cut her mid-month extra-curriculars in half, and it didn’t matter if he was the only wolf she ever wanted to spend another full moon with for the rest of her life. She didn’t feel any closer to knowing what he wanted than she had the day she’d let him follow her to that hotel lobby.

. . . Vanessa wasn’t sure if she quite knew herself, but that was a reflection for another day. Neither of them was fit for this, not at present, and she’d not make their dysfunction someone else’s problem.

When she returned to work, she barely noticed his absence at first. It was not unusual for him to not be in the office, and several days passed before she realized he was not at trial, was not busy with meetings, and was just as absent as she had been for the week and a half prior.

The house was black when she arrived. Blackout curtains kept the bedroom shrouded in darkness, the temperature was set to a near Arctic degree, and she found him exactly where she thought she might — on his back in the center of the bed, a tight skullcap over his head that extended over his eyes, one she knew was an ice pack.

“Hi, baby,” she whispered. She crawled onto the edge of the bed, attempting not to jostle him. “Can I call someone? Can I bring you anything? Tell me what you need.”

One of his fingers hooked around hers, pulling her hand closer, shaking his head infinitesimally.

“Trapp is on his way,” he whispered, the slightest exhalation of air. “How was your trip?”

Her lungs seized, and she threaded their fingers together. She’d told him she was going home to visit her family, someone’s birthday, and he had accepted it without question. She would tell him the truth, she had decided, but not now. She would wait until he was upright and no longer in pain; until the crampiness had passed from her body and he was back to barking at her in the office, then she would tell him what she had done, the decision she had made that affected her and only her, that would have ended them.

She watched a needle slip into his skin, Trapp seeming as chipper as ever, utterly unfazed by his brother’s condition.

“You know, between the debilitating neurological condition of his brain attempting to chew its way free a few times a month and his blood pressure, he’s probably going to drop dead of a stroke before he’s forty-five,” he told her cheerfully as she walked him out of the dark house. “So if you’re planning on tricking him into marrying you, I’d start planning the ceremony.”

“Trapp! That’s horrible!” she scolded. “I’m going to tell your mom you said that. Has-has he always been like this?”

“Oh yeah, since we were kids. He had a second bedroom behind my dad’s office because that was the one room of the house that was completely off-limits, and even Lowell knew better than to disobey. So it was the one place that could be kept dark and quiet. Are you staying, or do I need to come back to check on him?”

“No, I’m staying,” she decided at that moment. She’d call in again tomorrow if necessary. It’s not like you’re going to get in trouble for it.

“He needs to go to the ER if there’s no improvement in the next few hours. You have my number, right?” She nodded, watching him swing into the huge truck, the emblem of the town’s firehouse on the door. “Call me if it gets to that point. I’ll start writing my best man speech, but I can’t promise it’s not going to be really embarrassing.”

She swallowed several painkillers she’d received from the clinic before tiptoeing back to the bedroom and curling up at his side, gratified when his hand found hers, threading their fingers again.

She began to knead at the flesh of his palm, a reflexology video she’d watched a hundred times burned into her brain. She didn’t know if it actually helped him any more than the Tramadol she’d carried in her bag for the better part of the last two years, but it made her feel better to try.

It had been a very long week, and she wanted to put it behind them. Sometimes they both needed a break from the chase, she thought, closing her eyes, breathing him in.

* * *

Chapter Nine

F uck in his office every time he’s horny didn’t have quite the same ring to it as getting it out of our systems, but two years later, it seemed far more accurate. And probably not entirely fair, she was forced to admit, for he made sure to take care of her needs just as frequently.

She already knew they were the source of some gossip. Vanessa was confident that no one would’ve ever overheard them in his office — his suite was separated by an outer office, Johanna the only potential audience to their mid-day rendezvous, but she suspected that his longtime assistant had known from the beginning. She always had legitimate reasons for traveling up to the executive floor, particularly once she was made part of the Hastings-Durning team. He was never anything but short with her, the same as he was with everyone, their on-the-clock behavior, to all who may have been looking, completely commonplace.

She suspected someone must have seen them out together. Sharing an intimate table for two at one of Bridgeton’s high-priced restaurants, or perhaps stepping out of his car at the curb in front of the Templeton. Someone must have seen something, and she knew from experience that was all it took.

She was used to being someone with an inside track on company gossip, no matter where she worked. She made a point of being friendly with the biggest blabbermouths, never trusting them, but keeping them close enough to hear what secrets they were eager to share. She would befriend the cleaners and the mail clerks, invisible presences who always knew the dirt on the bosses, knew which coworker was getting sacked or who was pregnant, or who was humped over the broken printer in the supply room.

Now things were different. When she walked into her room, conversations halted. Eyes followed her, averting quickly when she looked up. The moment she stepped out of the doors, the whispers began again, often punctuated with giggles.

She had decided not to care. She was a mid-level associate on her way up the ladder and had begun optimistically researching the salary caps on the SA1 and SA2 positions within the firm. She worked on holidays, worked on weekends, spent more nights at her desk than she did in her bed some months. The time they were given for the moon was not a gift, and those hours had to be made up somehow, she would explain to her mother when questioned about why she couldn’t come home for a long weekend here or there. The gossip and giggles of junior associates, paralegals, and interns meant nothing to her. Let them talk, she told herself. It’s not like they have anything real to say.

That was, until the day she stepped onto the elevator going up to the executive floor. The conversation that was taking place between two other partners immediately halted as she stepped into the car. Ekins was a cat shifter, a senior partner like Grayson, with his name over the door. He was older, a bit more hands-off, and had always treated her respectfully. He nodded, his eyes lowering as the doors slid shut, but it was the other man’s reaction that caught her attention. He was younger, only recently named partner in the past six months or so, a salaried position without equity of his own. He had been the one talking, the one who had cut off abruptly. His eyes also lowered, but his mouth held the shadow of a smirk, and she had no doubt that he would resume whatever crass thing he’d been saying the instant she left.