I’d forgotten Wes was in the office with us. All of my attention had been on Patrick. I’d forgotten anyone else at all existed, really, and I would have been happy to live in that bubble for a long time.
I looked at my friend, waiting for him to say more.
He didn’t disappoint me. “He wants you!” It wasn’t really an accusation, but it wasn’t a casual statement, either.
I shrugged. I couldn’t exactly debate that. We were pretty much dynamite in bed. But it definitely wasn’t something I was going to delve into or acknowledge out loud right now. My thoughts were a mess and I still wanted to keep Patrick private.
Like he was only mine. Or at least he could be that way for a little while longer.
Too much thought would also lead to self-doubt. Because Patrick Crenshawe wasn’t really mine, no matter how much I wanted him to be.
“Wes.” I said his name like I was trying to attract his attention, even though I seemed to have nothing but. His entire focus was on me, like I was about to drop the gossip nugget of the century. He might not even have been breathing.
“Yes?” This time he whispered as he waited for me to continue.
“We got quite a lot done yesterday.” I laughed a little in my head at his crestfallen expression as I brought our conversation firmly back around to work. “But I think you and I and Charmaine need to press ahead with sorting the files in here.” I gestured around the office.
Sorting files in here was like one of those mythical never-ending bowls of spaghetti. The piles of paperwork didn’t seem to go down.
“And we’ve got all of the others in…our second location.” Being so cloak and dagger didn’t come naturally, but maybe it wouldn’t pay to speak out loud about the files Dad had taken home. Not before I’d had the opportunity to go through them, anyway.
He nodded and didn’t try to pursue the subject of Patrick any further. “Yes, boss.” Wes was a patient man, though, so I likely hadn’t heard the last of it.
“Oh.” I glanced out of the window, the sparkling waters of the Novelli calling up a memory. “And we also have to ensure that Mom has everything for her trip. She needs dropping off at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow so she doesn’t miss her huge boat.”
“Absolutely,” Wes mumbled as he scribbled on a pad that he seemed to keep for the purpose of making me wonder why he didn’t just keep notes on his phone like everyone else I knew. “We wouldn’t want your mother to miss the trip with her giant glass penis.”
16
PATRICK
Ihurried from the Gold Moon offices, phone clamped to my ear and my fingers curved around the thing like it was an anchor, like it could somehow keep me grounded and sane when I was about to lose my mind over Jo being in danger.
Thank fuck Brody knew me well enough to wait out Jo’s interruption to our call and get back to me later. I still wanted him to run that trace.
“Brody,” I barked out his name.
“Got a problem?” He sounded amused, and I pictured his familiar grin.
He probablywasamused by my predicament. It wasn’t often any of them saw me having any trouble with another wolf, especially not a rogue one andespeciallynot a woman.
“Where should I start?” I asked drily.
Contacting Brody usually indicated some sort of problem, and that was no secret. He could solve security and technology issues like some sort of dark-web-hacking ninja. I’d long since stopped asking for any details, as much due to my lack of understanding as my constant need for plausible deniability.
Not that Brody was at all sloppy in his work. And he never walked too far over the line. But I definitely couldn’t be seen to condone all he did. Or even everything I asked him to do.
Like right now.
“I still need you to trace a call made to a cell phone.”
“Oh?” Again, I could picture him, and he definitely had his eyebrows raised. “Any particular cell phone?”
I sighed. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “I’m sorry. Who did you say you were? Brody or Jackson?” He was definitely behaving more like my pool-using beta, who rarely afforded me the respect I was due. But that was the way we both liked it.
Brody chuckled. “Number?”
I rattled off the number I’d called a couple of times. The number that when I received a call from it, it was usually a hang-up rather than a conversation.