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I stepped away from her desk but turned back on my heel toward her so I could reach the point of this line of conversation. “Just out of curiosity, who was assigned to deliver Mr. Calix’s welcome basket?”
Ophelia gave me a stony look. “You mean the client you never met and who no longer contracts your services?”
I nodded. “I was just curious. They left a bit of a mess, and I had to clean it up. I thought you’d want to know.”
Catching the potential double meaning, Ophelia clicked a few keys on her keyboard. She frowned. “There’s no name on the schedule.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” I said in an intentionally bland tone.
“Indeed,” she said. “I’ll look into this. Thank you for bringing this scheduling issue to my attention, Iris.”
I wrapped the tote handle around my fingers and wondered how soon I could bolt without being rude.
“Run along now,” Ophelia said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Asked and answered.
—
I stepped out of Ophelia’s office, tucking the bag under my arm like it was a treasured infant. I rushed around blind, heedless of whether I would be seen as I ran through the maze of hallways. I mulled Ophelia’s revelation, worrying it like a loose tooth. Cal said that the tampered blood was delivered to his house before he arrived, which was clearly a break in the usual Council protocol. If Ophelia could track down who was assigned to the task, maybe we could figure out—
I ran smack into a wall of cold, unyielding man, bouncing off of him and into a wall.
I let out a stunned huff as I pitched forward. My nose was pressed into a stiff suit jacket that smelled of woodruff. The scent made me want to gag, reminding me of something unpleasant. I shook my head, rubbing gingerly at the spot that had whacked against the wall.
Peter Crown glared down at me, his hands curled around my arms in an iron grip. “I suppose it’s too much to ask you to show some decorum when it is absolutely necessary for you to be here?”
I nodded, looking down at my shoes. As angry and upset as I was, now was not the time to show an inordinate amount of spine. “Yes, sir.”
“Why are you here, anyway?”
I shrugged, and his hold on my arms tightened. “Just checking in with Ophelia.”
He sniffed. “I never have understood why she lets you gallivant around this office like it’s your own personal Chuck E. Cheese’s.”
A smarter person probably wouldn’t have laughed at that.
“While our fair leader seems to think of you as some sort of pet, please remember that the rest of us expect a minimum of comportment. I would hate for you to stumble into a situation that you can’t handle. Ophelia would very upset if you got hurt.”
As soon as they landed, the words chilled me to the bone. I had stumbled into a situation where I’d gotten hurt—recently, in fact. Did Mr. Crown know about that, or had he just made an unfortunately timed conversational gaffe?
He rolled his eyes at my nonresponse and pointed an imperious finger toward the nearest exit. “Leave now, before you manage to topple some lesser vampire, you silly thing.”>My mouth went dry. My throat was too swollen and tight to swallow the lump growing there. Is that what he really thought of me? Is that what he’d been thinking of me the whole time? Was he laughing at me, sneering inside at the poor, pathetic loser he could manipulate with a few flirty suggestions and a pity lay?
Biting my lip, I willed away the hot tears gathering at the corners of my eyes. At least Paul only showed signs of emotional indifference. With Cal, I’d slept with a man who seemed to disdain me actively before even meeting me.
“You will not cry in the middle of the Council office,” I ordered myself with a growl. “You will not cry here. You will not cry in the car. You will finish up here, go home, and shove a stake up his ass. Sideways.”
Boiling rage, like lava rising from the pit of my stomach, consumed every cell in my body. It was comforting or, at least, more comfortable than the crushing weight of self-doubt. How dare he? How dare he make those “observations” about me without even meeting me? What was he basing this on? Secondhand accounts from Council officials? Had he watched me from a distance like some creepy stalker? Because using a telephoto lens was a great way to sketch someone’s character. And my clothes were not that conservative!
Grinding my teeth, I had shoved the file folder into my bag, followed by the scanner, when I heard a voice outside the door. Terror replaced my righteous spinsterly anger.
Yeah, I was going to have a hard time letting that one go.
Ophelia was berating some poor underling for “not knowing her ass from the sparse collection of cells between her ears.” I scrambled to restack the files on the table. Should I hide? Should I try to crawl under the desk?
I slipped around the desk to the black leather armchair decorated with zebra-striped pillows. I dropped the tote on the floor and crossed my legs, as if I’d been waiting patiently. I concentrated on my breathing, trying to slow my pulse.
Please don’t let me be sweating right now. Pit stains would both tip off and offend Ophelia.
