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“And I’m sure you three are really nice guys and all, and I wish you all the luck in the world, but I really have to get back to the office now. So, bye, bye.”
She turned around and took three more steps toward the door, and lo and behold, they continued to follow her.
She spun around again, and they stopped where they were. Maybe she was imagining they were following her. She resumed her exit, but no, she wasn’t imagining anything. She would have to be a corpse not to be able to feel the heat from their bodies enveloping her from behind.
“Stay,” she said, whisking around to face them and putting her hand out before she carefully turned back around again and tried to make it for a door.
“Okay, what is this?” she asked, drawing an imaginary circle around the three hunks in the room and directing the question at Monty when they disregarded her order to stay and continued to follow her.
“Their purpose is to follow you, Ms. Bradshaw. Be your shadows, so to speak. Go wherever you go. Day or night. These were the stipulations laid out in your aunt’s will.”
“You’re not—”
“I am 100% serious, Ms. Bradshaw. Let’s not do that again.”
For the first time, Rayne understood that this was not some extravagant trickery set up by her one and only friend, Sarah Green. This wasn’t even an office joke thing set up by the people she worked with. It wasn’t even some random practical joke where she had been chosen as the unsuspecting recipient, or victim, depending on how she wanted to look at it.
This was real. She focused her attention, all her attention on the solicitor, a man probably in his late fifties who still held himself pretty well-kept, her great-aunt Margorie Bradshaw’s legal representative, and gasped. Monty nodded once to confirm that the situation was real. Very real.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
She slowly dragged her widened eyes off the solicitor and onto the three men, who made just breathing, something she thought she had perfected, really hard.
Triple craps.
And also, no freaking way.
“I’d like to give my inheritance back, please, and thank you very much.”
She had a hard time keeping her equilibrium in check on a normal day; she didn’t need the three-man gods to throw her further off balance.
She spun around and raced out the door, as fast as she could get on her high heels, down the hallway, and past the receptionist, who gave her a weird look. She didn’t dare turn around as she frantically pressed the button for the elevator. She slipped into the car before the door had fully parted and was already pressing the button to close the doors.
Except while she had been trying to outrun them, they had done nothing but casually stride after her, the width of one of their steps equaling three of hers, given how long their legs were.
And while she was almost out of breath, they were calm as statues as they slipped into the elevator with her and stood behind her.
“Okay, look. I don’t know what my aunt, who I didn’t know existed until today, thought she was doing, leaving me you three in her will, but come on, I think it’s safe to say she made a mistake. Maybe she meant to leave me her house, or her car, or family heirloom, but maybe she was... you know… not okay… not sound of mind. She was ninety-two years old, and Monty told me she had drawn up that will on her deathbed, and well, then you three happened. So, I think we should go our separate ways and pretend this never happened. Deal?” she said, holding out her hand to shake-on it.
“No.” Beckett King spoke succinctly, staring straight ahead.
Well, how very talkative of him.
“Okay, but Aston? Keaton? You must agree with me, and then it’ll be three to one, and the majority wins.”
“There hasn’t been a mistake, Ms. Bradshaw,” Aston volunteered.
“It looks like the majority says we’re staying,” Keaton said, giving her the slightest hint of a grin.
Argh.
The elevator doors opened, but without thinking, she pressed the tenth floor again. She wasn’t leaving the car until they had come to a proper agreement, which would ensure they parted separately.
“Fine. How much do you want?” She asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Yeah, right, as if she had money to bribe them. “Okay, I don’t have any money to offer you, but...” She rummaged in her handbag for a bit, feeling more and more despondent, as if she could really find something of value in it.
“This. I have this,” she said excitedly. “It’s a crystal stone, and it was given to me by Madame Cezate at a fair I went to last year, and it’s supposed to ward off dark and evil spirits. Take it.”
An electric spark exploded under the tips of her fingers as Beckett reached for it, touching her as he took it from her and somehow making her nipples harden all over again. She snatched her hand away and tried to shake off the fire he ignited all over her body and also the wetness between her legs.
