Page 85 of Knotted Laces

“What?”

“Connie says you’ve been here ten hours. Which”—a shrug—“I’ll give you, it’s less than your typical twelve, but get the hell out of here, kid. Go enjoy the fact that it’s still light out. This job doesn’t always stay at the office, and it gets in the way of sleep and meals and birthdays and—” She smiles. “It likes to pick the moment you most don’t want to activate to force you to work. So, get out of here, and if you need me to make that an order so you don’t feel guilty, I’morderingyou to get a life.”

“I’ll have you know that my life has beenverylifey of late.”

“Oh?”

“I adopted a cat?—”

She smirks. “So it can eat your face when you die and knock over water glasses just to be an asshole?”

My lips quirk, thinking I have a much-preferred method to waste water…and that my kitchen rug will likely never recover. “Well, that, and using the litter box the moment I clean it. Oh, and getting hair on all my”—I swipe at my pants—“clothes.”

“Impressive.”

“Well,” I say lightly. “If you want impressive, you should see my boyfriend.”

The words are a throwaway…kind of.

But the way they make me feel?—

Damn, I’m in deep. Really fuckingdeep.

And…

I can’t bring myself to care.

Sandra’s eyes dance. “A catanda boyfriend, consider me suitably chastised about you not having a life.”

“Rude.”

She grins. “Off with you, kid. Enjoy that life because you know the call to close all this shit down will come sooner rather than later.”

There’sa large black SUV parked in front of my house when I pull into the driveway and I’ve barely popped my door before Jean-Michel is getting out of the back seat.

A billionaire hanging at my curb, yeah makethatmake sense.

“JM,” I say, moving toward him and extending a hand.

He shakes it as he asks archly, “JM?”

I shrug. “Your name’s a mouthful,” I say, just to see what he’ll do. “JM’s easier.”

I swear his eye twitches.

“Chrissy says you’ve adopted Rex?” he asks instead of acknowledging that.

“Chrissy is short for Christina, just FYI.” A beat. “And yes, I adopted Rex, but he goes by Cookie now.”

“Hmm.” He nods his head toward the house. “So, am I going to get to see Cookie?”

Clearly, he’s not here for the cat, andclearlyhe doesn’t want to have this conversation on my front lawn.

“Sure,” I say, turning for the front door. “But RIP to those clean black slacks.”

He glances down then lifts a brow.

“Cook likes to cuddle,” I explain as I unlock the handle and step inside, not missing that one of Jean-Michel’s security guards has followed us. “Want to do a sweep?” I ask him.

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