He doesn’t even flinch.
Actually, the slow lift of his brow, his blue eyes raking over me, feels like a promise.
Challenge accepted.
I hiss softly through my clenched teeth, smashing the eraser on my pencil and jacking out another lead tip so I can go back to writing and ignore him as best I can.
As best I can turns out to be not very well.
I have to pay attention to him. There are slides, handouts, a Q&A session that my new team seems all too eager to participate in, though I hang back and let them ask all the questions when this will affect their day-to-day.
Osprey handles everything with a smoothness that makes me peeved.
Slayer looks aren’t the only gift he received from Satan. He’s got brains, too.
If he doesn’t have an answer on the tip of his tongue, that woman—her name is Wanda, apparently—is ready with the data at his fingertips, passing over tablets and file folders. He’s clearly done his research on the magazine.
Sigh.
If I’m going to survive this, I’d better do my homework on him.
For now, though, I just take notes.
It’s good info, no matter how much I loathe the source. We’ll just forget a few of my notes questioning how to get away with murder and potentially hiding a body, even if it means asking my father if he knows anyone in the Chicago mob.
I mean, I’m venting. Mostly joking.
Mostly.
But the thought does have a tiny comfort.
I cling to it as my lifeline while the meeting grinds to a close.
Finally, thank God.
I have every intention of getting the heck out of here without going anywhere near Osprey. But as I join the exodus of overexcited people exiting the room, lady luck just isn’t with me.
I end up in the human current and get jostled all the way to the back.
Okay, so I’m a little short, and easy to overlook, which is why I like to go for bright accents. You can’t miss the hyacinth pink of my silk blouse underneath the crisp grey of my suit jacket...but apparently you can miss my head going under the sea of elbows like a drowning swimmer.
After a few stumbling steps, I stagger out of the throng in their wake, feeling like I’ve just been put through the rollers at a car wash.
I waver a little, then catch myself on my perky kitten heels, straightening my jacket and lifting my chin.
Yeah, it didn’t happen.
I head for the door like a cat who swears you didn’t see it trip.
I’m fast, but not fast enough.
Just as I make it to sweet freedom, a towering body inserts itself in my path.
Much too close.
Close enough so I can smell him, this brash aftershave with an almost rich undertone to its woodsy sizzle. Plus a touch of something like hickory and the deep burn of aged whiskey.
Downright intoxicating.
It floods my nostrils and spreads through my body like I’ve just inhaled a drug, making me tingle down to my toes.
Why is it the terrible ones who always smell good?
I step back quickly.
Call it instinct when a hawk has you in its sights, after all.
“What do you want?” I bite off. “I have another staff meeting coming up.”
Osprey slowly raises both brows.
He doesn’t smile, doesn’t laugh, doesn’t call me a liar.
But he doesn’t need to.
One look says he’s disgustingly amused by my presence. Like I’m some kind of doll plopped here to satisfy his whims.
“No respect for authority then, Miss Landry?” he rumbles. “Or are we familiar enough to be on a first-name basis?”
“We aren’t familiar at all, Mr. Osprey. I give respect when it’s earned.”
His eyelids slide down, making the midnight-blue glitter of his irises more pronounced.
“I see you’ve decided to hate me. Good,” he tells me.
I square my shoulders, looking at him head-on.
“I see you’re delighted by that fact. So maybe just let me know when you’re done getting your rocks off on what I think so I can get back to work, m’kay?”
“Talking to me is your job,” he snarls back, undaunted by my insult. He folds his bulging arms over his chest and leans one broad shoulder against the doorframe, not quite blocking it off, but definitely making himself an obstacle I can’t slip past. “Or did you forget that I own you now?”
Glaring, I curl my fingers into a protective fist.
Holy hell.
It’s like he wants me to slap him on my first day here.
I suffer through his silence—a pause in which my whole body goes hot with rage—before his tongue darts thoughtfully over cruel lips, leaving them gleaming.
“By you I mean the magazine, of course,” he says finally.
Uh-huh.
Like he didn’t know exactly what he just said.
Prick.
I force a fake sweet smile. “If you want to meet with me about work, you can make an appointment. But if there’s nothing else, please excuse me, boss.” The last word comes out like a curse.