I wait for her to accept two tablets of Tylenol from the nurse and swallow them before asking, “Is that why you’re unsure on the previous number of stalker incidents? Because you’re skeptical about including me?”
Over our game of detective and victim, Regan rolls her eyes. I’m not willing to give in as easily. Three incidents, I can brush off. I watched her like a creep at Substanz five years ago. I was on the clock, but my behavior was borderline creeper. Theresa admitted she had agents following Regan before her case was assigned to me, and I’ve been actively shadowing her the past six weeks.
Three incidents make sense.
Four. . . I'm not down with four.
Four is wrong.
Four is a recipe for death—Regan only said that an hour ago.
Four I will not accept.
“For a guy who is five seconds from losing an eye, you ask a lot of questions.” I’m forced to eat my rebuttal when Regan quickly adds on, “Although it shouldn’t be any concern of yours, excluding you and your sneaky glances over a newspaper, I'm reasonably sure there have been four incidents total."
Before I can utter a syllable—or even a growl—a commotion at the side gains our attention. Isaac glides into the room. His face is awash with concern, his eyes wide.
“Jae called me when she saw your name on the admissions board. What happened? She heard rumors you knocked heads with some bozo in the elevator?”
I cough unexpectedly, regrettably shifting Isaac's attention from Regan to me. "Bozo. Nice to meet you," I greet, recognizing my cover has been blown.
I thrust out my hand, hoping my scruffy beard, bad need of a haircut, and the forty pounds of muscle I’ve put on since our last meeting will conceal my identity from him as well as it has fooled Regan.
A smirk crosses my lips when he accepts my gesture. I clearly have him deceived. Isaac’s handshake is firm, tight, and as austere as his eyes. He is grateful I helped Regan seek medical attention, but annoyed he isn’t the only alpha in the room. I had wondered a few weeks ago if he and Regan were more than friends. Now I know without a doubt their interactions only occur in one room—the boardroom.
Isaac is so desperate to be top dog, he'd never date a woman as fierce as Regan. He doesn't want a prudish wallflower, but he needs a woman willing to hand over the control. If I could look past my inane dislike of him, I could see a lot of similarities between us. He needs control. I have it. He wants to rule the world. I already do. He is successful. So am I—in my own way. All alphas have their own place in the world. Isaac's is in a jail cell. Mine is in Regan's bed.
What the fuck?
I snatch my hand away from Isaac's, panicked he heard my inner secrets. It wasn't his hand tightening around mine alerting me to his suspicion. It is the distrust in his eyes. He has the jealous, untrustworthy look down pat. He doesn't want Regan shouting his name, but that doesn't mean he'll let any random water her turf either. I understand. I interrogated my sisters' boyfriends all the time. It was so much fun watching them sweat, I even had the "talk" with boys not dating her.
Outside of work, I’d accept Isaac’s challenge with a smile. Alas, I’m on the job. I shouldn’t be conversing with him, much less without Theresa’s permission. If she finds out we’ve been formally introduced, my head will be on the chopping block. This isn’t a probability. It is a given.
I shift on my feet to face Regan. It only takes two seconds to gain her focus since her eyes were bouncing between Isaac and me as if watching a tennis match. Her pupils are massive, apparently as fascinated by Isaac’s inflated chest as I am.
The confusion slashed across her gorgeous features vanishes when I say, "I'll be sure to jot down the correct apartment number before attempting another visit to my friend's home. Would hate to have more elevator incidents than necessary."
Isaac’s stern gaze shifts to Regan when she mutters, “Where’s the fun in that?”
Even an immense amount of egotism pumping through his veins doesn’t impede Isaac from registering the disappointment in Regan’s tone. He just lost a point in our game of tit for tat. I shouldn’t be grinning like a newbie actor accepting an Oscar, but I am.
I nearly ask Regan for her number before I remember this isn’t a game I can play. Although she hasn’t done anything illegal in the time I’ve had her under surveillance, she still sits on the opposite side of the law. I am a lawman who follows the rules to a T. She is a lawyer who bends them at every possible opportunity at the request of her client. We would never work out. So instead, I dip my chin in farewell, pivot on my heels and bolt.
Any leverage I gained in our alpha male showdown is lost when Isaac’s chuckle is the last thing I hear. He thinks he won our latest battle. I’m inclined to believe him.
Chapter Nine
“Seriously?”
Isaac's wide-with-suspicion eyes drift to mine. When I lift my brow, silently demanding he return his phone to his suit jacket, pain scuttles across my face. I have no clue why my body is registering pain. I shouldn't be feeling anything. I'm so doped up on sedatives, I mistook Alex's concern as something much greater.
He wasn't attentive because he felt the crazy current surging between us. He washed my wound as he was sickened with grief. The way he hightailed it out of here like his ass was on fire as soon as Isaac arrived was a clear indication of my ill-informed assumptions. He saw an out, and he ran for it.
My mood worsens when Isaac asks, “Name?”
He only mutters one word, but it’s a harrowing reminder of his rigid security. Isaac is a protector. From the day he aided in my escape from Substanz, to last week when he ran a background check on a guy I planned to meet from Tinder, my safety has always been a top priority on his to do list.
At times, I thought his concern was due to the sister/brother comment he made years ago, but his interaction with Alex has weakened my hypothesis. He wasn’t just parading his naturally engrained authoritativeness; he was marking his scent all over me.
