Not to mention that my men are here, and I’m not ready to leave them…not yet.
I had no idea if I’d see them again before I left, but I also relished in the idea that they were so near. I mean, I could easily go to them—if I wanted to reopen Pandora’s box. I moved the idea out of my mind temporarily.
“Sasha, you’re hurt. You need medical attention!”
“No, I am fine, really…” So much for keeping my cool. I inhaled and closed my eyes, counting to ten. “I need you two to stop worrying now,” I pleaded. Knowing that they were on edge wasn’t making me feel any better, and I couldn’t afford any more ill feelings. I already felt like I was bursting at the seams.
“Sash, I’m going to dig into Mirror, Mirror. This is an unsafe work condition. Maybe there’s a story—” Alex started to say, her journalistic intuition clinging for something to do to feel helpful while I was so far away.
“Please,” I begged, my will to fight evaporating altogether. “Please, don’t. This is the company I work for. We’re trying to save the environment, Alex. Doing a story like this only sets our progress back.”
Alex’s mouth tightened but to my relief, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Seriously, I’ll chat with you both tomorrow, okay? I just need to get organized here.”
Begrudgingly, they let me off the call, but as soon as I disconnected, I missed them. Even if I’d decided to stay with my boys, I would have never been able to stay away from Mom and Alex.
What emotional mess had I gotten myself into?
I took a second to collect myself before bringing my laptop back out to the lab area, and when I stepped out of the bedroom, I grimaced in disgust. Queenie and Hunter had their heads together and were whispering stupidly at each other. There was a twisted sexual tension in the air, which I hadn’t noticed until that moment.
I guess I know what they were doing while I was gone—having the worst sex imaginable.
A shiver of humiliation slid down my spine as I thought about the time I’d wasted pining after Hunter and the awful five minutes we’d had together. Looking at him now, I was disgusted that I’d ever let him touch me. He wasn’t a man—he was a silly little boy with self-esteem issues. I could see that now with blinding clarity. He and Queenie deserved one another. On some level, I was happy that he wouldn’t be acting like a kicked puppy now that I was back, but it didn’t dampen my repulsion for the situation between them.
“Are you ready to get back to work?” my supervisor asked, barely pulling away from Hunter as she stared at me. She wasn’t quite barking, but it was close enough.
“I’m doing fine, thanks,” I retorted, flopping down at my desk. “And thanks for coming with me to collect the samples.”
There was an almost ominous silence that followed my jibe, and I had to look over my shoulder to see if they were still there because it had gotten so quiet.
“Well, I don’t suppose it would have done any good to have two of us lost in the snow, would it?” Queenie retorted sharply, and I raised my eyebrow dubiously.
“Really?” I snapped. “That’s your excuse?”
“It’s not an excuse!” she whiplashed at me. “You’re the only one I know who could get lost on such an easy path!” Her voice was screechy, and I wondered why she was acting so strangely.
Then I realized what she was worried about—she was afraid that her bosses would find out what happened.
She didn’t call it in to Mirror, Mirror!
The thought was appalling. Did she sincerely think I’d just run off to hide, or did she care so little about me that she was just waiting to see if I were dead before calling in a missing teammate?
A part of me wanted to savor the threat that I was telling by dangling it over her head, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t as big an asshole as she was—even though I wished I could be.
Still, I didn’t say anything to ease her conscience.
I turned my attention back to work and sighed when I realized how damaged the samples I’d taken were. It was my own fault for having left them in the bag for so long, but I hadn’t been thinking about work when I’d been gone, not for one minute.
No, I’d been living in a fantasy with men who adored me and bent to my every whim and desire.
And now I had nothing but shitty samples.
“Where are you going?” Hunter demanded when I rose from my desk and headed toward my parka.
I turned and smirked at him before slipping on my jacket. “I need more samples,” I replied. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”