Page 2 of Deader than Dead

I grinned at the lie. “Ten minutes had me being bang on time.”

He put the phone down. “Cade wants to see you.”

“And he thought he’d ring you instead of me, did he?”

Calisto’s frown deepened. “Yeah, that was weird.”

I levered myself away from the desk. “Don’t lie for me in future.”

“I was being nice.”

“I know you were, but he knows exactly what time I got here.” I lifted my ID badge and waved it at him. “Don’t go thinking this is all about security. When we’re in this building, Cade knows everything about us. When we have lunch, when we take a piss, how long we spend doing it. He’s probably got a little notebook on his desk with a section for each of us.” My eyes strayed toward the empty desk and I smirked. “Griffin’s notebook has a lot of empty pages.”

Calisto’s eyes had gone wide. Wide enough that I rolled mine. “I’m joking. Cade doesn’t keep notebooks. Why would he when he can pull it up on the computer, or even better get HR to do it for him so he doesn’t even have to lift a finger? But sweet as it is, I don’t need you covering for me.”

Calisto’s phone started ringing again, and I hurried toward the door. “If that’s him, tell him I’m on my way.”

With only two floors to go, I took the stairs. A summons to Cade’s office wasn’t unusual enough to ring any alarm bells, but it was still something I could have done without. Out of the three of us in the necromancy department, there were no prizes for guessing who had the most fractious relationship with our boss. Calisto was too damned sweet to make any waves. Griffin got away with murder for reasons unknown. And then there was me. John Averill—expert in not thinking before he opened his mouth, and someone who should have really clean shoes considering how long I spent with my foot in my mouth.

People frequently asked me why I continued working for Cade if he was such an ogre. The answer was simple. I’d tried going it alone for years, and the pay was worse and the hours were longer. Cade might be a pain in the ass, but he’d worked hard over the years for the contacts he had and it showed. The PPB had a reputation that meant most people would choose it over a freelancer any day of the week.

ID was required again at the top of the stairs, the sight that met me once I’d swiped it and pushed the door open never failing to bring a wry smile to my lips. If the rest of the building was swanky, then this floor was more like a stately home, with expensive paintings—at least I assumed they were expensive; it wasn’t like I knew the first thing about art—velvet couches, tall house plants that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a botanical garden, and the pièce de résistance, honest to god marble statues.

In among all that finery was a desk, the man sitting at it giving me a narrow-eyed stare as I bypassed the naked statue of a man wrestling a lion that left nothing to the imagination and made my way toward him. I stopped in front of him, offering my usual saucy wink. “And how are you this fine morning, Asher? You’re looking as gorgeous as ever.” He was. There was no word of a lie there. With his tall, lean musculature, platinum blond hair, ice-blue eyes, and perfect skin, Asher could have graced any catwalk or magazine cover, and they would have paid him handsomely for it. And instead, he’d somehow ended up as personal assistant to Cade Everleigh.

Asher steepled his fingers in front of him, displaying an ice prince persona that perfectly matched his looks. Gay? Straight? No one had the slightest clue. He might be the face of the PPB when Cade was busy, or pretending he was, but beyond that, he was a complete enigma. He’d appeared out of nowhere to replace his rather more matronly predecessor one day and had been here ever since. The last line of defense, in case all else failed between Cade and the rest of the world. And I doubted any trespasser would fare well against him.

Which begged the question why I went out of my way to be as flirtatious as possible whenever our paths crossed, especially when he wasn’t my type. My type ran toward tall, dark, handsome—and human. Not cold, with about as much emotional depth as a tomato. Yet, I could never stop myself from trying to chip away at that frozen exterior. I didn’t even know what would signify a win. A smile. A kind word. The slightest chink in his armor. “Cade summoned me,” I said when Asher just continued to study me with that same cool detachment.

“So I understand,” he said. He flicked a hand toward a row of seats in a silent instruction. God knows why there was a row of them when I’d never seen more than one person come up here at a time. I sighed as I took one of them. “Are you serious? He demands I come up here and then he makes me wait? What is that? Some sort of power move?”

“It is what it is,” Asher said evenly. Did this man ever get flustered? His finger hovered over the intercom button. “I could tell him you’re not prepared to wait if you’d like me to?”

I sprawled back in the seat and crossed one leg over the other to give the impression—hopefully—of relaxed indifference. “Whatever. I’d only be doing paperwork, anyway, so the longer he makes me wait, the better.”

Asher dropped his gaze back to whatever he’d been reading before my arrival had served as an interruption without a response.

At least a minute ticked by, sixty seconds long enough to have run out of fingernails to examine. Don’t flirt with him. You won’t get anywhere and neither would you want to, so it’s a waste of time. “So, Asher,” I said, waiting for his gaze to lift to mine before continuing. “What have you been up to recently?”

“This and that.” That was Asher all over. Never rude. Never anything less than civil, but also never willing to divulge even the tiniest snippet of information about himself.

I sat forward in my chair and offered him my most charming smile. “Ever the mystery man, aren’t you, Ash?”

“Asher,” he corrected.

“Oh, pardon me for trying to be friendly.”

“Consider yourself pardoned.”

Was that a flash of humor from him? Surely not. I must have been mistaken. I crossed my arms over my chest and studied him. “Would it kill you to give out a bit of information about yourself? How long is it since we first met?”

Asher sat back in his chair and regarded me without blinking. “I’ve been working here for two years.”

“Two years,” I said, “and I don’t know the first thing about you.”

“What do you want to know, John?”

My name on his lips was jarring. I couldn’t recall him ever using it before. “Are you married? Single? Gay? Straight? Do you have children? Where did you work before here? How did you get the job? Did you already know Cade? Is that why you appeared from nowhere? Where do you live? Why does no one ever see you leaving the building? Do you live here? Or, when nighttime comes, do you just stand in a corner like an android till morning?” All the questions came flooding out. At least I wasn’t flirting.

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