Page 48 of Instant Bond

“Well, go on,” he invited, taking a seat across from me at the shiny executive desk. “I’m listening.”

So I started at the beginning. How I’d met Cameron at the café, and then again at the restaurant. How I’d brought him into my work in a desperate ploy to get him to talk to me (which Anthony laughed at me for). When I got to the part where Lucas ambushed and tricked me into going to a bar with him, he stopped me.

“Wait, wait.” He held his palms up, shaking his head. “Lucas Cromwell?”

“Yes.” He knew him as well as I did, as we’d all been in the same grade.

He shivered, making a face. “I didn’t know he was still bugging you like that.”

I explained how he’d taken it personally that I’d kicked him out of my apartment without sleeping with him after sobering upenough to realize what a monumental mistake I’d made inviting him inside in the first place. He’d been bitterly pursuing me since then, trying to repair his wounded ego.

“When he found out I was seeing someone else, it just made everything worse.” I went on through the timeline, giving all the details of my advancing relationship with Cameron, and about the report with CPS. When I was finished, Anthony sighed and mimed the action of wiping sweat from his forehead.

“So you think he’s the one who gave them the tip?”

“I’m positive,” I said. “Cameron doesn’t have enemies like that.” He was completely innocuous and harmless. The only reason he was being screwed with now was because of me. The guilt was like twisting a knife in my stomach. But Lucas had ended up doing the opposite of what he’d intended, which was presumably making me miserable.

“Well, I’ll be honest with you,” he started. “A false report to CPS is just a misdemeanor, more if you get caught doing it twice. But that’s only if you can prove he’s the one who did it, and that it was under false pretenses.”

“There’s no way he genuinely believed that Ty wasn’t being taken care of. It’s obvious.”

“Well, if you want to make a case for stalking and harassment, you could try and serve CPS with a subpoena but it’s not likely the court would approve it. Reports to CPS are anonymous for a reason, and if they don’t protect the anonymity then it makes it so people will hesitate to file genuine reports, because they don’t want to be retaliated against.”

“It’s bullshit,” I muttered under my breath, shaking my head. “So in other words, I’m screwed.”

“Not necessarily. If we built enough of a case, we’re more likely to get the subpoena approved. Do you really want to start building a case against Lucas Cromwell?”

“I don’t know what else to do. I’ve been as clear as I can to him that I don’t want anything to do with him, but he can’t take no for an answer. And now he’s involving Cameron and Ty.”

“You know,” Anthony said, leaning back into his chair as he smirked at me. “The way you talk about this guy… Sounds like you’re pretty smitten.”

“What of it?”

He shrugged, but his amusement was evident. “It’s just nice to see, that’s all. You know Malik talks about how he wishes you’d settle down and get married.”

“Really?” I asked, barely able to suppress a wince. Embarrassing.

“You know how omegas are,” he said, shrugging. “He thinks you need someone to come home to, rub your shoulders, blah blah.”

“Rub my shoulders?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. It’s nice getting your shoulders rubbed.”

“If you say so.”

“You got a picture of him?” He asked. “I’m curious.”

Opening up the gallery on my phone, I flipped past the picture of Cameron’s naked body streaked with come to bring up the one of him and Ty, passing it over.

“If you tell me he looks like a teenager, I might come across this desk,” I warned him.

He laughed, staring down at the screen. “He doesn’t look like a teenager. He just looks young. But maybe that’s a good thing for you. You can be kind of a wet blanket.”

“Hey,” I retorted, but I wasn’t really offended. It was mostly true.

“And this is his kid?”

“Right.”

---