**NB. This story is as it comes – straight out of my head and may contain typos**
CHAPTER 18 – WREN
“Hey, who are you?”
The big fluffy cat stalked toward me, tail in the air, and I closed the refrigerator. Several half-empty Chinese takeout boxes had appeared since yesterday, but there still wasn’t much in the way of food. I’d got out of bed with the idea that I could make Blane breakfast—and make myself useful—but at this rate, he’d be getting coffee and three kinds of cake. What time did he start his day? Closer to lunchtime than breakfast, probably. He hadn’t gotten home until five thirty in the morning. Soft voices in the hallway outside my room had woken me, Blane talking to Beauregard, and it was only eight o’clock now.
Did Beauregard live here? Was that weird, a lawyer living with his boss? I mean, I understood they were friends, but… Maybe they were more than friends? Although I was also living with my boss, and we were barely more than acquaintances. Could I even call him a friend, or was I just a thorn in his side?
This was such a damn mess.
Gah.
Should the cat be on the counter? Probably not, but the intense look in its eyes and the claws that clicked on the granite surface made me hesitate to shoo it away. Was this Blane’s cat? I risked checking the diamond-studded name tag. Yes, her name was Myrtle.
“Well, aren’t you a pretty thing?”
Was she friendly? I hoped she was friendly.
The cat placed her ass daintily in front of the toaster and examined a paw, then she turned her striking green eyes on me. Her gaze was intense as she sized me up, probing, and I took a step back. Then told myself not to be so stupid. She was only a cat.
“Don’t worry, I’m not here to steal your place in Blane’s affections. I’m just… Well, I’m having a few issues with a man.” Myrtle kept staring. “Not an ex. Okay, so I’m having problems with him too, but the reason I’m here is that an asshole kidnapped my friend, and… Why am I talking to a cat?”
This whole week had been surreal. And awful. Deep down, I still hoped I’d wake up and find this had all been a bad dream, but I was beginning to accept the reality. Caria was gone. I was living on borrowed time. Living with my hot boss, who assured me he had everything under control, but did he really? He was a businessman. A successful businessman who seemed to think he was invincible, but a businessman nonetheless. His answer to my problem was to march into the lion’s den and fix things with the sheer force of his personality, but I’d heard enough whispers about Zion to doubt Blane’s solution. But what could I do? Tell him the stories I’d heard from my former colleagues at the Devil’s Den? Explain that Zion was a sly son of a bitch who’d once set fire to a man’s car with him inside it? Bystanders had tried to drag the victim free of the flames, Dennis the pit boss among them, but the guy had been handcuffed to the steering wheel. Plus his dog had burned in the trunk.
If I made a fuss, Blane would probably kick me out, and then I’d be on my own. Caria would only have a penniless blackjack dealer fighting in her corner. We’d both end up dead, and nobody but Kayden would come to our funerals because Caria didn’t have much family either—only a sister, and she was in prison.
“This is a nightmare,” I muttered, and Myrtle tilted her head to one side. “Do you want breakfast? Is that why you keep watching me? Where’s your food?”
I hadn’t expected her to answer, but she surprised me by jumping off the counter and trotting to the pantry. Maybe her food was kept in there? I was poking around the bags of candy, a liquor store’s worth of top-shelf alcohol, and stacks of unopened cookware when Myrtle leapt up to the top shelf and pushed a box off the edge. It landed at my feet. Waffle mix? Was that a request or merely an accident? I scooped it up and checked the ingredients—flour, sugar, milk powder, and raising agents, whatever those were. I didn’t know a whole lot about cats, but back when I lived in Cheyenne with Dominic, I used to feed our neighbour’s kitty when she went to visit her daughter in New Hampshire. Trixie the Siamese ate meat out of a can, and the only treats she got were turkey-flavoured.
Then again, Blane lived on junk food, so there was a good chance his pet’s diet wasn’t any better. Obviously I couldn’t give him a lecture, but he did say that he’d buy any groceries I wanted, so maybe I could sneak a more appropriate kind of cat food onto the list? Although that wouldn’t help right now.
“Let’s see if we can find you some chicken, okay? Or fish?”
Perhaps there was something in the freezer behind all the ice cream and fancy gateaux?
“Myrtle doesn’t eat chicken or fish,” Blane said from behind me, and I squeaked and dropped the waffle mix. Then stumbled backward, tripped over my own feet, and would have landed on my ass if he hadn’t caught me. Strong hands hooked under my armpits and hauled me upright, then his arms snaked around my waist to steady me.
Holy hotness, he was hard. His chest, I mean, not other parts that I absolutely wasn’t going to think about. I realised this was the first time he’d touched me.
“You okay?” he breathed in my ear.
“Uh, yes, just super clumsy. I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing you need to be sorry about. Unless you try to feed Myrtle chicken, anyway—she’s vegetarian.”
“A vegetarian cat?” I asked, trying desperately not to focus on his arms. Why wasn’t he removing them? “Is that healthy?”
“Healthier than starving. She turns her nose up at cat food.”
“What about… I don’t know, getting her something from the rotisserie?”
Blane finally released me, and I turned to face him on shaking legs. I’d expected him to look tired after only two hours of sleep, but he was bright-eyed, clean-shaven, and dressed in another of those perfectly tailored suits. Today’s was dark grey.
It matched the circles under my eyes.
We were close, too close, and the generously sized pantry suddenly felt tiny. But I didn’t step back, and neither did he. No, he just smiled, a devastatingly beautiful smile that made me forget, for one brief moment, that my whole world had fallen apart.
“Rotisserie chicken would be a waste of money. Myrtle knows what she likes, which is waffles for breakfast.” He nudged the box I’d dropped with a toe. “Joseph usually makes them, but if you want to save him the trouble, the waffle iron is in the cupboard beside the stove.”
“The cat…eats waffles?”
“Only one waffle. If you make two, she’ll take a bite of the second, but you’ll end up throwing most of it away. There’s a can of whipped cream in the refrigerator, and the maple syrup is right…” He reached for the shelf behind me, white shirt stretched taut over well-defined pecs, leaning so close that I could feel the heat rolling off him. His cologne was a subtle mix of cedarwood and citrus. “…here.”
“Right,” I mumbled into his chest, pulse racing, then raised my head and found him watching me through amber eyes. “Uh, do you want waffles? Or Mr. Beauregard?”
He chuckled softly. “I definitely don’t want Mr. Beauregard.”
Guess that answered one of my questions, but I wasn’t prepared for the warm rush or relief that flowed through me.
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I have to go out this morning.” He tucked my hair behind my ear, and it seemed that now the dam had been broken, he was going to keep touching me. And heavens above, I kind of liked it. “But have dinner with me tonight.”
“What?”
“Dinner. It’s the meal that comes after lunch.”
Now I tried to push him away, but it was like attempting to move a boulder. He didn’t budge an inch. And rather than feeling trapped, I felt relieved because this was the man protecting me. Relieved and a tiny bit sweaty.
“Dinner where? I can’t exactly go out, and I’m not having candy for an appetiser, cake for an entrée, and liquor for dessert.”
“Here. I’ll have food delivered.” He ran a finger down my arm. “You’ll be safe, I— Fuck.”
Blane hopped back, cursing, and I looked down to see claw marks in his pants. Myrtle stared at him through narrowed eyes.
“You little psycho,” he grouched. “These pants were new.”
Was it possible for a cat to look utterly unapologetic? Because somehow she did. Then she batted the box of waffle mix toward me and miaowed.
“Aw, I think she’s hungry.” Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh. “I should make her breakfast.”
“Use DoorDash—order her steak tartare and a dozen oysters.”
Myrtle swiped at his ankle again, but this time, he jumped to the side.
“Brat,” he growled. “Do that again, and you’ll get a one-way ticket to the animal shelter. Coach class.”
I gasped. “You can’t!”
“You’re right; I can’t. Last time she ended up there, she escaped and came right back.”
I poked him in the chest, hard, which hurt me more than it hurt him. “You asshole! You took your cat to the shelter?”
“No, of course I didn’t. She removed her collar, and a well-meaning stranger picked her up. One of the staff downstairs spotted her on the shelter’s website—she was Cat of the Week, no less—and by the time I arrived to pick her up, she was already on her way here.”
Oh.
“Sorry I poked you.”
“Forget it. And don’t let Myrtle take advantage—she’ll have you running her a bubble bath and blow-drying her fur if you’re not careful.”
“I thought cats didn’t like water?”
“Myrtle isn’t a normal cat.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t take offence at that, just preened and licked a paw. Dumb, Wren. Of course she didn’t take offence. She was a cat. A reasonably smart cat, but she couldn’t understand human words. Could she?
“I’m beginning to realise that.”
Blane flashed me one last smile. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Then he was gone, leaving me alone with a cat whose IQ was probably higher than mine, a box of waffle mix, and a whole bunch of confused thoughts, some of them inappropriate. When I was with Dominic, I’d secretly wished for a little excitement in my life, but now I’d changed my mind.
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Go to Chapter 19
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