Chapter 1
Chloe
“Chloe.”
I look up to see the CEO’s assistant standing in the door of my office, head tilted as she watches me.
“Tara. What’s up?”
She raises her wrist and taps a sharp nail against the jeweled watch on it. I don’t need to get a closer look at it to know that there’s no way she could afford it on a typical salary for her position. “Staff meeting in ten minutes.” She arches a perfectly shaped brow at me and I have to work at keeping my expression neutral. My mother used to tell me that my face had subtitles, giving everyone a front-row seat to my thoughts.
She’d never meant it as a compliment.
“Thanks,” I tell her, pasting my most professional smile across my lips. It doesn’t reach my eyes, I know that, but I’m pretty sure Tara knows I can’t stand her, and the feeling is definitely mutual. “I’ve just got one more email to draft.”
She doesn’t leave. Instead, she’s just standing there, watching as I work. It’s strange and suddenly, I’m self-conscious of every tap of the keys. I misspell a word and, when I rapidly hit the backspace, I know that she knows I made a mistake. My face feels hot, my eyes burning as I fix them on the screen of my laptop, but I don’t look at her, refusing to give her the satisfaction.
I finally hit send on the last email and turn off the laptop, gathering it and some files into my bag and heading for the door. I expect her to walk away or move or something, but she doesn’t.
I lift my brows in silent question, but she ignores me, instead raking her eyes over me derisively. Everywhere her stare touches, it feels like barbed wire is being twisted around my skin. It’s clear that she finds me wanting and I don’t give a shit. Or I do, deep down, but no way would I let her know that. She’s a predator, sniffing out weaknesses before lunging in for the kill. She picks a new person to sharpen her claws on every day and today, apparently, is my turn.
Tara’s auburn hair is styled into perfect waves, which sit softly on her shoulders. Her make-up is a little too heavy for the office and her standard ‘uniform’ is made up of a silky blouse, which has a few too many buttons undone, which is tucked into a slinky pencil skirt that stops around mid-thigh. She’s showing way too much skin for it to be considered professional attire, but I know that none of the males that work here are complaining about it. She’s got several inches on me, mostly thanks to her ridiculously spiky heels and the fact that I have to wear flats.
“Nice outfit,” she murmurs, the tone sounding right but the glint in her eye malicious. My slacks are fitted to my waist and hips, accentuating my curves before flaring out around my legs–perfect pants for hiding the fuck-ass ugly moon boot I’ve been forced to wear. My burgundy button-down tucks in at my waist and has a loose bow tied at my collar. My blond hair is tied back into a messy bun, with just enough tendrils escaping to frame my face.
I had a childhood with a woman who made me feel less every day because I never fit her image of the perfect daughter. I never fit her image of the perfect daughter, but a lifetime of learning to love and accept myself for who I am. I’m comfortable with myself, with my body and my curves.
“That color suits you, I guess,” Tara continues, flashing white teeth in a saccharine smile. “I’ve got these awesome notes from my nutritionist, if you’d like to see them. I’m sure it’d help you lose some of that, uh, winter weight.” Her red lips twitch with amusement, but it doesn’t last when I give her no reaction.
Bitches like Tara–they’ve perfected the ability to tear the confidence down in other women with minimal effort. In just one sneering glance, she manages to shrink me down to a frumpy old spinster, even though I’m only thirty-freaking-four. I can’t call her out on her bullshit, though, because even though she might only be an assistant, the break room gossip is that the CEO’s office sees a lot more action that it probably should–especially considering Bryce Whitman is very much married with two kids.
God, I can’t stand her. “Was there something else you needed, Tara?” I ask blandly.
She crosses her arms over her chest, which only deepens the cleavage she’s got on display. “That… man is still hanging around the reception.”
I don’t think anyone ever warned this girl that if the wind changes, her face might just stay like that. Internally, I roll my eyes. It’s been a long-ass week and an even longer day. Now, it’s four pm on a Friday and I’ve got something like ninety minutes before I can get the fuck out of this place, meaning my patience isn’t just thin, it’s practically non-existence.
I don’t want to play this game with her, but she’s clearly got a motive for this whole interaction and isn’t going to move until she delivers her message. So, I decide to play dumb just to fuck with her.
I tilt my head, widen my eyes and go for innocently confused. “What man? Is your dad here again?”
She narrows her eyes at me, lips pursing until it looks like she sucked on a lemon. She hisses, “The criminal that you’ve got following you everywhere.”
I open my mouth, prepared to defend the ‘criminal’ comment, but then snap it closed. I don’t give a shit what Tara thinks, and Hawk probably is a criminal. Plus, I don’t particularly like him either, so why would I defend him to her?
She sees my silence as an opportunity to carry on the attack. “You must think real high of yourself, conning someone into following you everywhere.” She smirks smugly, clearly thinking she’s landing some verbal hits. “Maybe next time, you should go for someone who actually looks like a bodyguard, rather than…him.” She’s going for disdain, but something flashes through her eyes whenever she mentions Hawk. “Not that I think anyone would be after you, anyway.” Her watery blue eyes flick down my body again. “You’re just so…” she licks her lips, clearly relishing this lovely interlude. “Well, you, I guess.” She lets out a little laugh, like we’re sharing a joke together.
“Well, fuck.” I sigh, giving her a fake little pout. “Hit me right where it hurts, Tara.”
She looks taken aback but quickly regroups, her full lips pressing into a tight line. “Bryce… I mean, Mr. Whitman–” she gives me a sly wink “–isn’t going to like the fact you’ve got some kind of biker lurking around. He’ll chase clients off and give our company a bad image.” She sends me a sympathetic glance, shaking her head as if the whole thing just can’t be helped. She unfolds her arms so that she can press her fingers briefly to my shoulder before yanking them away, almost as if she’s afraid of catching something. I bite back my amusement as she continues with finality, “You’ll need to ask him to leave the building. I’m sure he can look out for you from outside.” Her disbelief that Hawk has a real purpose couldn’t possibly be louder.
I almost feel bad for ruining her little power-play, especially because I think she actually believes that I hired Hawk out of some misguided attention-seeking attempt. It’s tempting to blurt the truth out just to see if her eyes would literally pop right out of her head, but I won’t. I don’t owe her or anyone else an explanation and I don’t bring my personal shit into work.
Plus, I’m still dealing with a lot of shame with the fact that one of the men responsible for kidnapping my niece was a man I’d been seeing casually. No way will I just willingly hand ammo over to Tara that will let her tear strips off my character. She’s already way up on her high horse, even when she’s laying herself over her boss’ desk and spreading her legs.
It’s funny, but coming to work–even with a silent shadow–felt like my only kind of normal at the moment. It would be better if Hawk did actually linger outside, except I’d already tried asking and he’d refused.
Well… he hadn’t actually refused. He’d just ignored me completely.
Asshole.
Tara’s tapping her heels, clearly waiting for some kind of response from me. I don’t know why she thinks she holds any kind of power over me, however I don’t want to play her game anymore. It was amusing at first, but now, I’m just tired.
“Good thing I’ve already spoken to Bryce about it.” I tell her, taking just a teeny-tiny amount of pleasure in the way her eye twitches when I drawl his name. As I watch, her cheeks flush with color and I can practically see steam coming out of her ears. It’s hard to tell what annoys her more–the fact that I’m familiar enough with Bryce to be on a first-name basis or that she didn’t know about our conversation.
I bet even the idea of me having a private meeting with him is enough to make her want to scratch my eyes out.
“Anyway,” I adjust the bag strap over my shoulder and shuffle my feet, signaling that I have finished with this whole interaction. “I have a meeting to get to, obviously. And I’m sure you have somewhere to be?” My lips curl up into a little smirk. “I’m sure the boss-man is looking for you.”
She does a little shimmy, straightening her shoulders and smoothing a hand over the tight fabric encasing her hip. Her armor back in place, her smile comes back in full force, one again showing way too much teeth to actually be considered friendly. I’m almost surprised when she doesn’t snap her teeth threateningly at me.
She purrs, “You’re right, he will be looking for me.” She flaps a hand through the air, letting out a breathy laugh. “Bryce would be so lost without me.” She pauses, the smile dropping away like a stone in still water. “You’d do well to remember that, Chloe.”
With that threat—because how could I take any other way?—she throws me one last narrow-eyed glare and spins around, her heels clacking against the floor as she strides away.
I shake my head and head towards the conference room. I find an empty seat at the table and start unpacking my belongings. As I do, someone sits down next to me on my left.
“Holy shit, can this day get any longer?” I grin at Joey’s groan, looking him over and noting how disheveled he looks, which is not his usual MO. I pop an elbow on the table and lean my cheek on my fist as I stare at him. “You don’t look like you’ve had enough caffeine today, love.”
The look he sends back is wide-eyed and squirrely, so I’m not surprised when he confesses, “I’ve had seven.”
Still, I blink. “Seven? As in the number seven? Any decaf at least?” He shakes his hair, hair flying around his head, knee bouncing erratically under the table. “Holy shit.” I cough to cover up the giggle that tries to escape at my neurotic friend. “Tony is gonna kill you when you get home.”
“I know!” He drops his head back with a groan. “I promised him I’d cut back, but on days like today? No way, I just wouldn’t survive.”
“Ease off the drama, Hollywood. You sound like you’re talking about crack.”
“Coffee is crack,” he mumbles.
“Consider yourself cut off.” I decide firmly, slicing a hand across my neck.
He sends me a cheeky wink, declaring, “You’re not the boss of me, bitch. Is your hot biker still in the building? If you’re not letting me have any more coffee, I’m sure perving at him would be a good pick-me-up.” He gives a dramatic shiver. “I don’t normally do bald guys, but he’s so big and all those tattoos. I don’t know how you haven’t climbed him like a tree.” His expression turns suspicious. “Or have you? You wouldn’t hold back on details, right? Because that isn’t what good friends do.”
“I’m sure you perving at Hawk would go down a treat and no! I have not climbed him in any way, shape or form.” I sit back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest as I say peevishly, “He’s an asshole. It takes his attractiveness to about a zero.”
Joey taps my nose before I can swat his hand away. “Careful, your lies are showing.” He makes a thinking noise. “I think he’d enjoy my perving. I’ve been known to turn straight heads, you know.”
“One guy!” I protest laughingly. “One guy turns out to be bi and suddenly, you’re calling yourself the pied piper of straight men!”
He shrugs, completely unrepentant. “Don’t hate me because you ain’t me,” he singsongs before leaning right over into my space, dropping his voice low, “Speaking of love lives–”
“Absolutely no one was speaking of any love lives.”
“–what kind of dirty, dirty things have you been doing lately?” He completely ignores me, as well as the scathing look Debbie sends from his other side as she sits down, her disapproval of our conversation heavy. Maybe she should mind her own business then? I send her a look back, gratified when she looks away.
Turning back to Joey, I hiss, “Would you shut up? I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but we are at work.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything, including that you’ve been single and ready to mingle for ages. I think it’s time to set you up on another date.”
“No. Nope. No way. Absolutely not.”
“Come on, Chlo. Robbie is thirty-something, has a good job and is single as a Pringle.”
“Thirty-something?” I send him a skeptical look. “Just how well do you know? What’s his ‘good job’?” I use my fingers to air quote the words.
Joey looks shifty as all hell as he freezes in his seat, clearly thinking fast. “I know him well enough. He’s a… friend of a friend.” When my expression doesn’t change, he lets out a put-upon sigh. “Tony knows his cousin’s girlfriend.”
“Jesus, Joey.”
“I’m just looking out for you. See, you’re getting all dried up.” He grabs my arm and gives me a little shake. “You need this.”
I slap his hands away and retort, “I resent that. There is nothing dried up about me, thank you very much.”
“I beg to differ.” He holds his palms up in surrender, apparently drawing the line at getting into a slapping fight with me here. “You refuse to go on any more blind dates.” He flicks up one finger at me. “You won’t ride that hunky biker,” another finger goes up, “and Trevor has just disappeared.” He’s shaking his whole hand at me now, ignoring the attention he’s drawing as he cries out, “Poof! Gone! And you haven’t even told me why!”
“That wasn’t five things,” I mumble, looking away from his betrayed expression. “Put your dramatics away, swear to god, or I’m moving seats. Anyway, do I need to remind you about what happened the last time you set me up on a blind date?”
“A girl gets stood up one time and she never forgets.” He grumbles, rolling his eyes.
“I didn’t just get stood up, Joey! That’s the night I met Trevor.” I whisper his name like I’m saying ‘Voldemort.’
He hums, leaning in so close that his nose almost brushes mine. “And you need to tell me what happened. I’ve been dying for you to give me the dirty deets.” He twists his lips to the side, not breaking eye contact with me. “Tony and I thought you had a good thing going, that he might be the one to last the distance. You seemed almost…enamored.”
“Not even close,” I mutter, annoyed just at the memory of Trevor. “I just liked the orgasms.”
“Fair,” he concedes, but then asks, “So, why did you give him the ol’ heave-ho?”
I let out a soft exhale, knowing I can’t tell him the truth. I hate lying to him, though, so I finally settle on half the truth. “He didn’t like Silver, told me she was scamming me out of money. He was freaking nasty about it, too.” I shrug, trying to look unaffected. “So, I kicked him out and told him to lose my number.”
When he gasps, “That dick!”, I smile because Joey’s met Silver a couple times now, and he adores her.
Debbie leans around him so she can eye both of us when she snaps, “The meeting is about to start, so would you both be quiet?”
We look over and see Bryce has entered the room and is standing at the head of the table. He’s sorting out some files, so Joey sends Debbie an annoyed look before turning back to me. “Drinks next week? We can vent about men and how much they suck.”
“I’ll take the drinks, but I do not want to hear about how much Tony sucks.”
He plants a hand around his neck as if he’s clutching pearls. “Chloe!”
Before I can retort something about his delicate sensibilities–yeah, right–Bryce clears his throat, his signature move for starting the meeting. Joey points two fingers at himself before jabbing them in my direction, a silent promise that he won’t forget about the gossip or the drinks.
I give him a nod before sitting back and acting all kinds of professional as I focus on the CEO. Debbie mutters something from her seat, but we ignore it because she’s fifty and her husband golfs, as in that’s all he does, so she’s allowed to be a little bit uptight.
I bet she doesn’t even own a vibrator.
The meeting drones on, leaving us stuck in there for almost two hours–something that’s even more frustrating because at least half of it could’ve been an email. Finally, Bryce lets us drag our asses out of there and I wave goodbye to Joey before heading back to my office to retrieve my purse. As I head to the reception area, I notice that most of the place has already cleared out; everyone clearly eager to start their Friday nights.
I beeline for the elevators, expecting Hawk to fall into step behind me, but by the time I’m pressing the call button, his oppressive presence is still missing.
Looking over my shoulder, I spot him almost immediately. He’s leaning against a wall, arms crossed and his usual scowl firmly in place as he looks down at the woman standing in front of him. Tara has her hip cocked out and one of her hands pressed against his chest, looking way too familiar with someone she’d called a criminal.
This bitch.
Not that I care. He isn’t mine and he can fuck whoever he wants, even a heifer who probably has teeth in her pussy. It’s none of my business.
Like he can hear my thoughts, he looks up and catches my eye, his scowl intensifying as the elevator doors open. I casually stroll inside, turning around and watching transfixed as he grabs her arm and throws it away from him. The doors start sliding shut and I make no move to stop them, almost hoping he won’t make it. Without even a word to Tara, he pushes past her and stalks towards me, shoving his arm into the door just before it shuts.
They open back up and Tara’s standing in the same spot, staring in our direction with a disgruntled expression. When she looks at me, I give her a little finger wave just as the doors finally shut and cut her off from view.
“Interesting taste there, Behemoth,” I murmur, pulling my phone out so I can quickly scroll social media. “Sorry you had to cut it short. Clearly, I’m not a good wing woman.”
He grunts.
“Maybe we should head to Lucky’s,” I reference a dive bar the club recently bought. “I’m sure you’d be able to get your kicks in there.” Out of the corner of my eye, I sneak a glance at him, but he’s not looking at me; instead, his gaze is fixed on the mirrored doors across from us. Regardless, I carry on. “That would be a lot more interesting than babysitting me. Oh, I know! I’ll go to my place and you can go fuck some club girl.” Still nothing, not even a blink. “If you don’t want to leave me alone, you could send Cannon around to watch me. He’s so pretty to look at.”
His head snaps in my direction, his glare practically pinning me to the floor. Again he grunts, and I point a finger in his direction. “Don’t swear at me, mammoth! I’m just trying to be helpful. You could do with some loosening up. This way, we both win.”
He raises an eyebrow and I see the question all over his face. “Some of your noises,” I scoff the word, “are self-explanatory. I don’t need a cave dweller translator to know that you’re being a dick.” He looks a little taken-aback, which makes me smile. Maybe the more I annoy him, the more likely he is to leave me alone.
I get why he’s here. Ash wants someone with me and for me to stay at the clubhouse until we get the all-clear that the danger has passed. It was just two weeks ago that my dead sister’s boyfriend–what a mouthful–kidnapped and assaulted my niece. Once we found Silver, we learned Larry hadn’t been working alone. Oh no, he’d had help from his cousin, who just happened to be Trevor, the guy I’d been seeing.
And that is why I was refusing Joey’s pressure to date. I was apparently such a terrible judge of character that I didn’t even realize that a guy I’d been sleeping with had no qualms about selling people. I still can’t believe this even happened to us–human trafficking in this small town was crazy enough, but to have almost lost Silver because of Larry and Trevor?
I was still having nightmares, so I couldn’t imagine how she was feeling.
Ash was adamant that someone else was involved, saying that there’d been evidence that a woman had been helping them. Until the Dark Shadows MC finds out who it is, they’ve got me and Silver on lockdown–I live at the clubhouse and I have a babysitter when I go to work or anywhere else. I’m not arguing, especially when I was still wearing a moon boot because Larry played real-life Grand Theft Auto and hit me with his goddamn car.
Plus, the less Silver worries about me, the better. I’m just glad that she could still open her bakery, with a lot of help from the club.
What I did argue about was having Hawk being the one to follow me around like a bad smell. I’d asked to swap him out for someone more pleasant… like Cannon. But Hawk had apparently refused to budge.
I don’t know why, because I’m pretty sure he’d like to squeeze me until I pop.
We reach the parking garage and Hawk leads me out of the elevator, his head swiveling around to ensure that no one’s waiting to ambush us. The club provided a large SUV, citing that it was a lost safer than my own sedan, and Hawk doesn’t utter a word as he leads me to it.
“Guess we’re just heading straight back to the clubhouse,” I mumble, feeling more dejected than usual. I haven’t been back to my little house in weeks and every day, it’s a little more obvious just how much I don’t belong at the MC’s clubhouse.
I’m so glad that Silver found me six months ago, because my life is better for having her in it. That’s especially true if I let myself think about the fact that I would’ve been a target for Larry and Trevor, no matter if she’d been there or not.
Tonight, though? I just wish I could get back to my real life without this cloud of danger hanging over my head.
