When Harperand I ended up skipping dinner, one of Maverick’s enforcers showed up at my door with a ton of food at precisely 8 PM. I texted him a thank you, and he sent me a winky face.
We worked so late that we crashed on the floor of my office.
I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard the office door close, and found a fuzzy blanket draped over me. It smelled like vanilla. With a sideways glance, I found a clean pair of my clothes on my desk.
Harper had nothing to keep her warm, so I threw half of the blanket over her before going back to sleep.
She went home to change and drink another bag of blood the next morning. It was Saturday, but weekends off were not a thing at Darkwood Investment when shit was going down.
While she was gone, an enforcer brought me breakfast.
When she got back, I changed, and we repeated the process from the day before.
Work.
Work.
And more work.
Plus lattes, of course. I’d started adding caramel instead of vanilla, and didn’t hate it.
Food was consistently provided by Maverick or someone from his pack, because I consistently got lost in my paperwork and forgot to eat.
I apologized to Carter slightly better than Maverick had, and complimented his scarf and turtleneck when I saw him. He played it off, and changed the subject to complain about something Phyllis had done to annoy him.
He didn’t usually have issues with anyone, but she was uniquely difficult.
That evening, I had a crazy long meeting with Ozzy, the head tech guy, to figure out a program that would make filing the old paperwork a little more efficient. It was around 2 AM when I crashed on the floor again. Harper was already asleep there.
I woke up on a ridiculously comfortable, oversized couch that had been placed against the side wall of my office with a large fake plant beside it. Both also smelled like vanilla.
Harper was still on the floor.
I was slightly concerned that the Alpha had both snuck a couch inside and placed me on it without waking me up, but exhaustion was the obvious reason for that.
Four more days passed similarly.
Maverick was in and out of the office across from mine, often staring at me when he was in. Every day, he wore massive cardigans or sweaters that absolutely weren’t his style, and left them draped over the back of my chair for me in the morning.
I didn’t have the self-control not to put them on.
The Alpha or one of his enforcers showed up with food regularly. They always made it clear the food was from him when they dropped it off. And they brought it more often than I really needed to eat, but I wasn’t complaining.
I got to know them by name, and chatted with a few of them like we were friends by the end of the week.
I tried not to like them, because they were werewolves, but it didn’t work.
I liked them anyway.
New things appeared in my office after I fell asleep every night.
A mini version of the coffee bar outside, just for me, with an insane espresso machine for my lattes.
Fairy lights that wrapped around the top perimeter of the whole room, making everything ridiculously cozy.
Curtains over the glass wall, to cover the space on either side of the door, and a bunch of decorative pillows that were comfortable enough to sleep on.
Cozy chairs to go across from my desk, a vase full of fake pink roses that looked real but smelled like vanilla, and a basket with two more blankets in it.
