Page 281 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

Eighteen

SHELBY

Wincing as I sat down in my chair, I almost wished I would’ve just worked from home today. Since I had to finish the books and take a call with a Los Angeles investor, I had no choice but to go into Oasis. Thankfully, my chair was heavily padded so my sore ass didn’t hurt as much as it would’ve in a different chair. I’d applied the cream Easton had given me two nights before, and had been applying it religiously since.

He’d been a man possessed that night. It’d been unlike anything I’d ever seen from him. Easton was still very much an anomaly to me. One night, he was patient and attentive, then he treated me like a whore and a suspect on another, but of what I didn’t know. The questions he asked of me were so out of the norm that I had closed myself off. I knew what a police interrogation was like, but he was no cop. Ayden Santiago was one, but not Easton.

Or was I wrong about that? The men were very close now as I thought about it. Easton also hung out with Chase and Cortland Maxwell who I’d heard were agents with the FBI. I closed my eyes as I tried to think of anything to explain why a Dominant I had come to know so well would treat me the way he had. It made no sense. Even if he was some sort of cop, I had done nothing wrong.

My eyes flew open at the light tapping of my door and I realized I had left it open. Mindy smiled politely at me. “Are you okay, Shelby?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I just got a bit of a headache,” I partially lied because trying to figure out Easton was an act of futility, so it was making my head throb.

“I can close the door so you’re not bothered with all of the outside noise,” she offered.

“That would be great. Thank you,” I told her.

“Anytime.” She then stepped back and closed the door allowing me to wallow in silence.

And wallow I did. Everything was going so wrong lately. I’d had bids in on hotel space in two separate chains in Los Angeles, and one had already declined my offer without me having even submitted a bid. Being turned down for things sight unseen was a new one for me. Back in Carson, and the surrounding areas, my family had been talked about extensively. It’d been another reason I had come to Denver as I’d hoped to start a new life.

Now, I felt like that same girl being turned down for everything I applied for. It’d happened here in Denver too, but not to this extent. Thankfully, the other chain had been polite enough to hear me out later this afternoon. I’d developed a PowerPoint and as I waited for it to load on my computer, I closed my eyes once more.

I needed to land this location because it would do wonders for expanding the Oasis brand. It would not only give me name recognition for something positive in an area where the Prescott name held shame, but it would add to my net worth. It was a win/win. I was just about to smile, but I heard the door swing open.

“What is it?” I asked Mindy. “Is something wrong?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” I heard, and my eyes flew back open.

That raspy voice of Easton’s had my entire body coming alive, even as I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. I turned toward him. “Why are you here? Did you not get my text message?”

“I did, but I have some questions to ask you,” he replied.

“Some questions? Didn’t you ask me enough of them the other night?”

“Obviously not the right ones.”

I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. I didn’t care, either.

“I don’t like to be interrogated, so why don’t you–”

“It’s better to just be honest with me, Gemini.”

“My name is Shelby,” I retorted not even giving a damn about my sass.

“Is that the only one you go by?”

I arched a brow. “What are you talking about?” He continued to confuse me, even outside of Syn. I shook my head though as it didn’t matter why he was asking me something so stupid. “Better yet, I don’t even care. I just want you to leave.”

He stood there for almost an entire minute as he assessed me. Just when I thought he was about to listen and go, he only went to the door to close it. When he turned around, I pushed back from my desk and was about to get up, but he put his hand out to stop me.

“I don’t want you here,” I told him.

“It’ll be better for you to talk to me than someone else. No one can help you but me, so I suggest you drop the attitude and just come clean with me. I want to know everything.”

“Everything? Who the hell are you? And who the fuck do you think you are just barging into my office to–”

“I’m Agent Easton Bradford with the Drug Enforcement Agency.”

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