The car was paint-free. Which I didn’t understand and daren’t ask because Onyx was a ball of rage beside me. He drove quickly to the office, and when he parked, he got out, and I hurried out after him.
As we waited for the elevator, he turned to me. “You go nowhere today without me, understand?”
“I don’t think—”
“Angel,” he warned as the elevator arrived. “Don’t.”
“Fine.”
As we arrived at our floor, Onyx strode into his office, and I hesitated before I followed him, closing the door behind me. “What is your problem?”
He’d been taking his suit jacket off when I came in, and he paused before he hung it up. “Why must there be a problem?”
“Don’t,” I snapped, mimicking his tone from earlier. “Don’t do this, you don’t get to do this now.”
“Do what? I have a very busy day, so can you hurry this along?”
“You’re being a dick.” Crossing my arms, I stared at him. “I’m sorry they got to your house, but it’s not my fault.” I thought about it. “Okay, it’s maybe my fault, but it wasn’t intentional.”
“I’m aware of that, Angel, and it’s not your fault.”
“Okay. So you can’t, you know, take it out on me or pretend that nothing’s happened.”
“Nothing has changed,” he told me coldly.
And for him, it probably hadn’t, and I was stupid to think maybe it had. Last night as he slept beside me, I’d felt . . . relaxed. At ease with him. My fear of thawing toward him hadalso melted away, as had my dislike of him. He hadn’t even done much to warrant it.
Just protected me, and apparently that was enough.
“I’ll let you get on,” I told him as I turned to open the door. “Let me know what happens.”
“I will.”
In my own office, I thought about it — all of it. I couldn’t remember it all straight in my head, and opening my top drawer, I screamed as I jumped back. A dead rat lay in my drawer, and I felt sick as I saw the entrails around the body.
Onyx was suddenly in my office, and I pointed to the drawer. Looking at it, he snorted as he closed the drawer. “Spilled its guts,” he muttered as he checked the drawer. “This fucker got into my office.Again.”
“It’s technically my office,” I said as others came into my office.
“Angel?” Glenn asked.
“Saw a spider,” Onyx told them as he straightened. “You’d think someone like Angel would be calm around spiders, but it’s like we always suspected. She’s a screamer.”
I knew why he did it, but it didn’t make me hate it less. With a few chuckles and muffled laughter, my colleagues left my office. “Really?” I snapped at him.
“Close the blinds; I need to get rid of this.” When I didn’t move, Onyx turned to look at me. “What? Why are you not moving?”
“Because I’m not a machine,” I snapped at him as I crossed to the door and yanked the blinds closed. “I need time to process.”
“You don’t have time, so suck it up, and do not touch anything.” He exhaled loudly. With quick deft movements, he removed the liner from my wastebasket and then scooped the animal from my drawer with it, carefully folding everything inthe liner, and then dropped it in the trash. “I’ll get the drawer replaced,” he said as he stared down at it. “Angel, come here.”
I didn’t like his tone. I didn’t like the way he looked at me from under his lashes as I stayed at the door.
“Angel.” He straightened, and his tone left no room for argument. Swallowing hard, I crossed the room and stood beside him. “What do you see?”
Looking down, bracing myself to see the remnants of the rat, instead, I saw the card that had come with the flowers.
“He brought it back,” I said as I went to pick it up, and Onyx grabbed my hand.
