"Crystal." He stands up, all six-foot-something of him, and the way he moves—unhurried, confident, like the world will wait for him—makes my teeth clench. "For what it's worth, boss, I'm not going to let you down."
I hold his gaze for a second too long and my stomach drops, and I look away first, which never happens.
"Close the door on your way out," I say.
He does, and the click of the latch is very loud in the quiet office. I sit there for a long moment, perfectly still, my hands flat on my desk, breathing in the fading ghost of pepper and ozone.
Three days. A shared hotel. A career-defining presentation in front of every person who has the power to make or break my future, and Ray Garcia will be right there next to me the entire time. I should be panicking about the presentation. I should be pulling up the Morrison exhibits and running my talking points. I should be doing anything other than sitting here remembering the way his voice sounded when he saidI'm not going to let you down, all simple and sincere, like it was the easiest promise in the world to make.
My fingers drift to the side of my neck, just below my jaw, pressing against the skin there. It's a habit I don't remember starting, touching the spot where a claiming bite would go if I were the kind of omega who let anyone close enough to leave one. I'm not. I never will be. There's no point.
I drop my hand the second I realize I'm doing it and reach for my coffee instead, but it's gone cold, and I drink it anyway.
Ray
"—and then he shit on Alex. Like, on his chest. While Alex was holding him."
I snort, pressing my phone tighter against my ear and leaning back against the brick wall outside the firm's office building. It's cold out here, and I probably should've grabbed my jacket, but I needed air that didn't smell like printer toner and stress. "Please tell me you got a picture."
"I got a video," Devon says, and I can hear the exhausted pride in his voice. "Alex just stood there with this look on his face, like he was trying to decide if he still wanted to be a dad. Gabriel thought it was hilarious. He was laughing his little head off."
"That's my nephew." I grin up at the sky, which is gray and kind of depressing, but whatever. "The kid's got taste. Alex needed to be taken down a peg."
"Alex is going to kill you when I tell him you said that."
"Alex loves me."
"Alex tolerates you." There's a muffled sound on Devon's end, and his voice goes distant. "No, buddy, that's not food. That's the remote. Give it—Gabriel, let go." A pause. "Sorry. He's eating everything that isn't nailed down."
"Sounds about right for a Garcia."
"Shut up." Devon sounds like he hasn't slept in weeks, which is probably accurate. I can picture him on the couch with Gabriel on his lap and his hair sticking up in four directions, wearing one of Alex's old t-shirts because he stopped caring about his own clothes about two months into fatherhood. I hear him settle back into whatever surface he's collapsed on, and his voice gets clearer. "So what's going on with you? You never call me during work hours unless something happened."
"Nothing happened." I pick at a loose thread on my jacket sleeve. "My boss is sending me to a conference. Some fancy mountain resort thing for three days. Lawyers and panels and a gala, which I'm pretty sure means I need to rent a tux."
"Your boss." Devon says it flat, the way he always does when I mention Miles. "The hot one you won't shut up about?"
"I don't talk about him that much."
"Ray. You called me last week to tell me he rolled his sleeves up."
"It was relevant to the story I was telling."
"The story was about a filing cabinet."
Okay, so maybe I talk about Miles a little. It's not my fault the guy is distractingly good-looking in a way that doesn't make any sense to me. I've hooked up with plenty of hot guys. Hot guys are not new to me. But Miles isn't just hot. He's hot andmean, which shouldn't work, except it really, really does. He told me to stop talking today and I swear to god my dick twitched. I don't know what to do with that. I've never been turned on by someone who actively seems to hate me before, and I'm not sure that's it's healthy.
"Anyway," I say, because I can hear Devon gearing up for a lecture. "The conference. Three days at a resort."
"With the hot boss."
"With my boss, yes."
"In a hotel."
"That's typically where conferences are held, Dev."
He's quiet for a second, and I know exactly what he's thinking because I already thought it, about forty-five seconds after Miles told me to iron my shirt and be on time. Three days in a hotel with Miles Covington. Meals together, conference rooms together, probably some kind of shared space situation because the firm isn't going to spring for separate suites for a senior associate and his assistant.