Page 35 of Shark’s Rise

Grant joined me in gritting out our favorite F-word. Even the sound of Terryn’s timid knock annoyed me, but I didn’t dare permit her full access to the room. I gave up my comfortable position and strode to the door. My freak show of an assistant visibly startled when I whooshed the panel open.

“What is it?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“Oh. Umm.” She fluttered a hand to her necklace, her usual nervous reaction. “Ex…cuse me…for interrupting, Mr. Shark…”

“What. Is. It?”

Terryn forced an awkward smile. “Mrs. Gibson is here with your lunch.”

A quick look at my watch showed more than an hour had passed since Grant had come in. “Christ, this day is slipping away.” I looked over to my COO. “Are you having lunch in the office today?” While he scrolled through his phone, presumably to check his schedule, I told Terryn, “Show her in.”

While I gave Rio a decent smile as she pushed the Abstract Catering cart in, it was rough not to add a visible eye tick, as well. I craved the sight of my woman’s smile behind that conveyance instead. I ached with a thousand kinds of remorse, knowing she hated being away from her business.

“The usual spot there?” Rio motioned toward the seating area but pulled up short when she saw Grant sitting there. I looked on, instantly riveted, as the two of them locked gazes for a second. A long damn second. A second in which a wave of discernible electricity charged the air between them.

As they both recovered, hurriedly returning to their tasks, I raised a finger. Lowered it. What the hell was I going to say about that crazy bullshit? If I hadn’t just witnessed it—felt it—for myself, I wouldn’t have believed what just happened.

Interesting. Very interesting. And as replacement for focusing on a migraine, it didn’t suck one bit.

“Mr. Twombley.”

“Ms. Gibson.”

“It’s Mrs. Gibson, remember?” Rio stabbed her left hand into the narrow space between their forms.

“Blink and you’d miss it,” he said with a roguish wink, causing the woman to answer with a huge eye roll. “If that’s the sort of thing that matters, I guess.”

“It matters.” She visibly seethed.

Grant only widened his grin.

Mother. Fucker.

“If you have mine there, I’ll just eat here with Mr. Shark, please.”

“Whatever Your Highness desires.”

She performed a dramatic curtsy, much like a prima ballerina during a grand curtain call, but the overture just seemed to spur Grant on. Again, if I wasn’t watching it, I’d never believe it—but my best friend was already in motion, sliding in to loom his six-foot-six frame over her feisty little one.

Then he leaned in even closer. Ducked his head and uttered, in an intense but quiet timbre, “Submissive looks damn good on you, Blaze.”

Rio sputtered and choked like she’d gulped water wrong. “You are so barking up the wrong tree, dog.” She stared up at him, openly defiant. Her eyes were huge and round—and as undeniably dark as espresso beans. “In fact, you’re in the wrong forest altogether.”

Once more, Grant’s grin was nothing but broad playfulness. “I’m not so sure.” He looked her over slowly, from the top of her pixie haircut down to her Dr. Martens-clad feet. “But keep telling yourself that.”

As the woman dropped his tray of food on the table beside mine, I raised my finger again.

As a bunch of his pasta salad spilled out onto the table, I decided to lower it again. Slowly.

Rio, after all, was taking full charge of all the brash behavior in the room. “Oops,” she spat past a saccharine smirk before spinning on her heel and ramming the cart back out of my office. She didn’t bother reclosing the door, an opportunity that had Terryn all but salivating in let-me-save-the-day glee.

“Oh, my God,” she huffed. “How dare she? That woman is so rude! Do you need help with anything, Mr. Shark? Anything at all?”

Before I could bark out something in return, Grant cut in. “We’re fine, Terryn,” he said while smoothly shoveling his food back onto the service tray. “Would you mind just closing the door when you go out, though? Thank you.”

We ate in silence for several minutes.

Long. Damn. Minutes.