“He’s going to eat you one of these days,” Wren says.
“Eat it hard,” Puff says before I close the office door. “You know what Daddy likes.”
“Stupid fucking bird,” I mutter as I walk across the room.
“She’s in your office,” Jude says before I can even open my mouth to ask a question.
Normally, I’d be ecstatic at his ability to get me information before I have to waste energy asking for it, but there’s something about the glint in his eyes that makes me cautious. Also, I didn’t want that damn woman in my office. We have a waiting area in the back for instances just like this. He’d never let another client into my semi-personal space. I guess I should just be grateful he didn’t send her upstairs to my apartment on the tenth floor.
Client.
I realize as I think the word, that’s exactly what Annalise Grimaldi is. She isn’t an old friend. Enemy would be closer to the definition, but this is still personal, right?
She didn’t call me to hire Blackbridge. She called because when there was an issue with my ex-wife, I’m the first person she thought of.
I clench my teeth, looking over at my medic, wondering who’s going to provide his treatment when I jab him in the damn nose for the way he’s looking at me right now.
His grin only grows wider. I expect this kind of shit from Brooks, but it seems he just can’t leave it alone. “She had a lot of questions about you.”
That news doesn’t really upset me, simply because I know he didn’t tell her a damn thing. No matter how personal a case is, he’s a professional through and through. The other guy loitering around the room however…
My eyes hitch toward Brooks. The smiling bastard simply raises an eyebrow at me.
“You need to tone down your fucking charm while dealing with clients.”
“Can’t,” he says with a wide smile. “It’s literally uncontrollable.”
“I know better,” I mutter. “Ease up a little on the charisma and keep your fucking eyes off of her.”
“She’s off-limits.” It’s not a question, and I know he’s not finished. “I knew that much when you pissed a circle around her when you first saw her.”
“Never seen you growl at a client before,” Ignacio says, walking into the room with a beer in his hand.
“Don’t you assholes have anything better to do than hang out here? Anything on the Hughes case?”
Ignacio takes a seat next to Jude on the sofa. “Nothing yet, boss, but I’m working several different angles.”
I tilt my head, popping my neck, but it doesn’t bring the same sweet relief it normally does.
“You know what would ease some of that tension?” I don’t even look at Brooks. I know exactly where his head is—in the gutter like usual. But nothing will ever happen between Anna and me. Like ever. We can hardly stand to be in the same room with each other.
I release a long sigh and turn away from them.
“Exactly,” Brooks says as I head to my office.
They couldn’t possibly be further off the mark right now. The only reason Anna is here is because her friend is in trouble. Probably more trouble than she even realizes after the information I just got from Wren.
They’re only looking at skin-deep shit though, and when a woman walks in here crying and asking for help, looking like a four-course meal, they’re bound to read things wrong.
The woman in the parking garage eight years ago has nothing on the Annalise Grimaldi that showed up here tonight. Even then, she’d changed from the day of our wedding, but now she’s somehow managed to get thicker, sexier with her long brown, almost black hair. Her eyes are brighter, more honey-like, even red-rimmed with tears and fear muting them.
“Jesus,” I hiss, rubbing my hands over my face before opening my office door.
I need to figure all of this shit out with Dani so I can send her angry little friend on her way.
“Like fast,” I whisper when I walk in and find her asleep on the sofa in the corner.
No longer resembling a snarling bear, Anna is curled up in a protective ball, her small hands under her chin. I’d say she looks like a child, but the woman is way too stacked for anyone with working eyes to make that mistake. Bandages from Jude’s care are the only things tainting her perfect skin, and somehow even those don’t detract from her appeal. They make her real, less perfect, more approachable which is something I never pictured her as before.
I shake my head, forcing any thoughts of how she looks from it. I’m just tired, and maybe my dry spell has been a little too long. That’s the only reason for letting her somehow invade my thoughts in any form other than working toward getting her the hell out of my life, again.