She didn’t blink as he stared her down, and she didn’t look away, and after a few moments, his smile split. Gleaming white teeth with decidedly sharp canines, he had a dimple in his cheek, and she

knew she was lost. His wolf growled at hers, and her legs dropped open beneath the table on their own accord. She wanted to pick a fight and then let him clear the desk and fuck her senseless right there, in front of everyone else in the room.

It should have been a sign, Vanessa thought, looking back. She should have held her tongue the rest of the interview and then withdrawn her application, leaving to find a firm run by men who resembled her grandfather, not a sexy, imperious asshole. If she had known then how stupid he would make her, how she would make one bad decision after the next, all concerning him, she would have walked out and not looked back. But her wolf and her pride wouldn’t let her walk away from the way he smelled, couldn’t walk away from that sharp, cutting smile. She would stay, stay and prove him wrong. At least until you come to your senses, you silly bitch. Walk away with your head held high. And until then, you show this smug asshole what you’re made of until he’s begging you to stay.

* * *

Chapter Two

“D o you have any plans for the holiday?”

She looked up in surprise, eyes wide, shocked by the overture of small talk and uncertain of what holiday she was meant to be celebrating. Vanessa watched as one of his dark, perfectly groomed eyebrows raised archly; every second she remained silent, a guarantee he’d go back to treating her like a piece of gum on the sidewalk.

“Lupercalia?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed with a small laugh, letting out the breath she’d been holding, feeling her cheeks heat. “Oh, I-I guess not, not really. I used to make honey cakes with my mom when I was little, but I haven’t done that in years.”

“You don’t celebrate then?”

His tone was nonchalant, but Vanessa sensed the loaded judgment in his words. She could tell he had already mentally reached his verdict and found her lacking. Lupercalia was an outdated holiday, her parents had always posited, and an adult one at that. As a child, her family had a special dinner and not much else. The first actual party she’d attended was at University, and it seemed little more than an excuse for the frat brothers to score with as many girls as they could in an evening, hardly an advertisement for werewolf pride and inclusivity.

“Well, so much for track records and defendants and all that bluster about community.”

The smile he cast in her direction made every muscle in her body clench, and she tightened her grip on her phone to keep from throwing it in the direction of his perfect teeth. He was at the other end of the table, and she wondered if her almond-shaped manicure would be sharp enough to gouge out his eyes were she to vault herself like a ninja at him. Next time get the stilettos. Harder to type but has more benefits.

“But I suppose I have to give you credit — you weren’t terrible today, rabbit.”

She’d been there a year at that point. It should have been embarrassing, the way they’d made her start from the bottom, truly as little more than an office aide. The endless litany of tasks were things that would typically fall under the purview of a paralegal, some more befitting an unpaid intern. If there was grunt work to be done, Vanessa found it on her desk. She’d undertaken it without complaint, knowing the ladder only went up, and if she didn’t make these bones on the bottom in front of these new firm owners, she would never be given access to the first rung.

Despite his vocal presence at her interview, she’d seen very little of the imperious, dark-haired partner. It seemed he was constantly in court, coming and going with a confident sneer or holed up in his executive suite office, with an endless team of researchers, junior associates, and paralegals working round-the-clock on his cases. Even though he’d made sure to knock her down a few pegs that very first day, Vanessa was certain Grayson Hemming was actually quite unaware of her existence.

Until the day that he was.

It had been a day like any other. She’d been coming out of a conference room, surrounded by a throng of people, carrying a stack of binder-clipped documents. He had been on the other side of the hallway, stopping abruptly in the middle of the corridor and nearly causing a pile-up of bodies in his wake. When his eyes locked on hers, she felt the air leave her lungs.

The smell of him was thick and impenetrable and clouded her brain, making the wide-open corridor seem like a tight box inhabited by no one but them. His head cocked slightly, and she felt the weight of his eyes slide down her body to the tips of her toes and up again, pinning her there like an insect under glass. She jolted when she’d realized she was the only one left still standing there gaping, that they were both standing there staring at each other like idiots, and had forced her feet to turn away from him, beelining to a bathroom to splash cold water in her face and get control over her breathing, trying not to notice the way her heartbeat seemed to thump in the space between her thighs.

Since that day, she’d felt his eyes on her constantly. She had never assisted on one of his cases and had never been given a reason to venture up to the executive floor, but wherever she was in the building, it seemed as if he found a reason to be there as well, however briefly.

Vanessa told herself that the haircut she’d splurged on was necessary for looking professional in the courtroom, even if it did make her dark hair seem fuller and flippier, and that the several new dresses she purchased were similarly to look polished and capable for her clients . . . and not that the body-skimming shapes and designer labels were for the benefit of her daily audience of one. The weight of his eyes would sink into her back, pressing down her spine, slipping over her legs like

black satin. He was an asshole, a demanding, demeaning son of a bitch, but she had a very hard time pretending to herself that she didn’t like the presence of his eyes finding her throughout the day, pressing to her like a kiss before he vanished.

The unfortunate side effect of being fully in his orbit of awareness was putting up with him. This was the first case of his upon which she’d been called to assist, which meant armloads of discovery documents dumped on her desk at regular intervals and a non-stop stream of highlighters from the supply closet, more late nights than she had ever worked in her life, and a continuous email chain from him demanding more, more, more. More work, more research, accomplished faster, with the subtle insinuation that if she couldn’t keep up, she could see her way to the door. She had perfected the art of vomiting in a perfect stream into the toilet bowl and had invested in a giant case of breath strips that dissolved under tongue, plausible deniability that she ever let the stress of the non-stop workload, going to federal court, or his non-stop barrage of insults, demands, and threats get to her.

Vanessa pursed her lips, huffing in offense at his words, hoping it disguised the giddiness she felt over the backhanded praise. The attraction she felt towards her arrogant, demanding boss was mutually returned; she was sure of it, but as of yet, nothing had happened, which was for the best, she reminded herself firmly. A year, she reminded herself, crossing her ankles demurely, feeling the slow drag of his eyes, meaning she should have been well over her crush. If a crush were all it was.

“He’s a fuck boy,” her coworker had laughed in the bathroom mirror, weeks earlier, leaning forward until her breath fogged the glass as she examined her mascara. “A total man whore. I’ve heard he has a new girlfriend every other week, but none of them stick. There has to be a reason.”