“No,” I said slowly. “It’s just me.”
“You’ll be appropriately paid for the level of effort being required, as well as the hours,” Lucien said, looking up at his brother. He wrote a number in the margins of the contract, one that had my eyes widening and my heart skipping a beat. Tobias sighed when he saw it, then nodded. “I can make myself available to Sage until this project is completed, to ensure we can get the situation back on track. We’ll all have to, but I can take point.”
It was then I think Lucien over-egged the pudding. Tobias’ gaze sharpened, and he frowned slightly when he looked at me.
“You’re prepared to get more involved?”
“I fucking couldn’t stand Crystal. I told you that,” Lucien snarled. “I knew she was creating a shitstorm someone was going to have to sort, but no one was listening.” His eyes settled on me, and then he let out a long breath. “With Sage, I think I can forge a much healthier working relationship.”
I stared at him then, not blinking for a second, silently calling him all of the bad words I knew inside my head, then inventing new ones when I ran out.
I. Was going. To kill. Him.
“Well, if the two of you are prepared to work on the project, I’ll approve the contract. Get it sent down to legal and then sign Sage up before she changes her mind,” Tobias said with a shake of his head before pushing himself away from the desk. “It’s going to be a pleasure working with you, Sage.”
Lucien’s smile became smug as his brother held out his hand for me to take, knowing he had me right where he wanted me. I could either blabber out my lame excuses to one of the CEOs of a major Australian company as to why I was going to refuse his generous offer, or I could buck up, buttercup, and just do the damn job until this project was finished, making sure to polish my damn résumé and get my name out there so by the time it was done, I could walk away.
I smiled politely and shook Tobias’ hand.
“Thank you for the opportunity. You won’t be disappointed.”
Tobias smiled slightly, staring down at me again, to the point where I wondered if I had left toothpaste on my chin or something this morning.
“Excellent,” he replied. “I do hate to be disappointed.”
I didn’t let out a breath until I heard the door click shut, and then I turned on Lucien.
11
Right now, I wasn’t employed by anyone in this building. I hadn’t signed any contract or handed over any tax information. I was just Sage, and he was just Lucien. If I was going to do this, take this damn insanely well paying job, I had to discuss the elephant in the room, get it sorted, and then put it behind us.
“Are you going to tell them?” I asked, my voice like ice as Lucien stared at his computer screen, those massive hands flying across the keyboard as I spoke.
“Tell whom what?” he replied with the absent air of someone splitting their focus.
“Your brothers, about what happened.” I shifted uncomfortably on the seat, my body unsure if it should be stripping down naked and displaying myself across his desk, seeing if I could get that same single-minded focus back on me, or making a run for the door. Those fingers stopped for a second, and a silver eye met mine past the computer screen.
“And what should I tell them?”
“That we—”
“That you breezed into my life like a breath of fresh air, my lungs only really filling when I caught scent of you? That we had dinner and I barely tasted a fucking thing, so caught up was I, was my wolf, on wanting a taste of you? That you gave it to me in my car, pushing your fingers into your hot little pussy and feeding me your taste, while I tried as hard as I could not to run us off the road? That when I finally got you back to my lair, you were there, completely present for me. That you seemed to come alive under my touch, filling my ears with the kittenish sound of your moans and then…”
He shifted then, so he could see me with both eyes.
“Then you took my knot.”
This was supposed to be a significant thing for alphas, I’d read. Not all of them. There were alpha fuckboys just like there were beta ones, who’d squeeze that protuberance into any place willing to take it, but for many, it was more than a sexual experience. It was a spiritual one as well. It was a moment of intense connection, when a pack of alphas and their mate found each other, finally, heralding the beginning of something that would transform their lives.
“Yeah, that was unexpected,” I said with a sharp shake of my head, wishing I’d never brought this topic up, but…I had to know. If I was going to conduct myself professionally, I needed to know what shit lay in my path. “Sorry, I had no idea—”
“Don’t.” His response was intense, immediate. He stopped me where I was, leaning in closer. “Don’t dismiss that night, Sage. Don’t make it seem like it was nothing, because it wasn’t for me.” His hands slid across the desk, like he’d reach for me, but I felt a strange little pang of disappointment when they didn’t get any farther. “It was the greatest night of my life, and I can’t let you make out like it was a mistake.”
He settled back into his chair, the tension diffusing slightly.
“You robbed me of the opportunity of aftercare. Were you OK? I didn’t hurt you, did I? Please tell me that much.”
“It ached.” He winced at that, which had me changing tact. I looked back over my shoulder at the closed door, through which nothing of the outside world was allowed into this room. “We talk about this now and not again until the project’s done, right?” He nodded slowly. “I woke up feeling things I’d never felt before and had to take a few ibuprofen, then lie down with a hot water bottle.”