Page 55 of Defended By Love

“The boomerang of the office.”

Again, Grant squeezes my hand. Not that I get why. He’s making a joke. A good joke. I do always come back to the office. I’m not ashamed of it. If anything, it’s a compliment. It shows how dedicated I am.

“How can I help?” My voice catches on the last word. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the expression on Beth’s face. She looks repulsed—and I know what a repulsion looks like. It was the exact same look that I had on my face when she suggested that we do an office friendship bracelet exchange train.

It’s also the same expression that a date had on his face when he asked how I liked my eggs in the morning. I answered him frozen, so that we could conceive a child at exactly the right time in our careers, depending on how emotionally compatible we were about domestic work loads.

“The team here has determined that, while our security system is good, it’s not infallible. There are gaps in the cameras, which is holding them up.”

“What do you mean holding them up?” I ask.

Dominic gestures dismissively. “Now that all the radiation stuff is settled, I want to move onto settling some insurance stuff so we can set up shop elsewhere. But they’re still hung up on wanting to check to make sure there wasn’t anyone in the building.”

“Seems like the right thing to do,” Beth pipes up.

“That’s our little Beth—ever the bleeding heart.” He waves a hand at her.

Beth immediately flushes. Then, her face takes on another expression that I haven’t seen before—anger.

“It’s not me being a bleeding heart. It’s me being sensible. Someone could have gotten into the building last night.” She shoots me a look.

Dominic sees her looking at me and counters with his own imploring stare. It’s like they’re my parents and they want me to choose between them. No, it’s like he’s my dad and she’s some kid in my class and they want me to choose between them. There’s no contest. I would give a kidney to Dominic. I wouldn’t even show up to the Getting-to-Know-You-Jenga event that happened ten feet away from my desk for Beth.

Except… Beth is clearly right about this. Someone could have gotten into the building last night. Someone (me) did.

“Are we sure all the radiation stuff is settled?” I ask, avoiding the issue at hand. “Not really something to take lightly.”

“Yeah, who knows what it could do to a person,” Grant says, smiling to himself like he’s so funny. He can make all the little private jokes he wants about getting superpowers, but that one might have just cost him his date with me.

Not that I can focus on that. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something that makes me catch my breath. The tall, scarred man approaches. Zagreus Hart’s man. He shakes Dominic’s hand while he holds an important-looking briefcase in his other. It’s that over-the-top firm handshake that’s the male equivalent of pissing all over the place.

Strange. There’s no reason for them to be, well not friendly. Familiar? Certainly, there’s nothing friendly or familiar about this man. The scar that runs from the corner of his mouth to nearly his eye isn’t the most intimidating part about him. He has these piercing eyes that seem impossibly blue in contrast to his salt and pepper hair. He looms over us with his wiry frame, all-seeing and apart.

The tall man looks me over. “Who’s this?” He doesn’t even comment on Beth.

Dominic smiles. “This is Hailey Cox, one of our most promising associates.” He looks me over and chuckles. “She isn’t usually dressed like the most popular girl at a frat party.”

Then, he laughs that country club laugh again.

This time, I don’t join in.

Grant goes to step forward, but I squeeze his hand and pull him back. Despite the burning of my ears, I don’t want Grant to make this worse. Dominic just made a joke. A terrible joke, but from his perspective, his work building just collapsed for the first time. It’s no wonder he’s not at his best.

Although, I didn’t expect him to make such a misogynistic joke even at his worst. In front of someone who appears to be in business with us, no less.

“Anyways,” I stutter, feeling a little off kilter still from Dominic. “Maybe we should check in about the radiation before we go on to other avenues.”

“Are you thinking that you know more about emergency response protocol than the professionals?” the tall man asks in a voice that sounds like a threat.

Smooth. Turn the tables with a question. My personal tactic of choice.

“Besides, the radiation danger was mostly a hoax. A prank even,” Dominic adds.

It takes every bit of my professionalism to school my face into something that doesn’t broadcast my deep disbelief. Ordering your date chardonnay with steak is a prank. Demolishing a skyscraper is just a couple steps more serious than that.

“Forgive me, but I didn’t catch your name.”

The tall man runs a pinky down the length of his scar. “Perhaps because I didn’t offer it?”

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