It’s just a nap, I tell myself. And I leave.
That was the last time I saw Angela Sanguine.
The last timeanyonesaw her alive.
Chapter One
“Viagra or Valium.”
I knew it. I knew that psychotic little shit wasn’t on the guest list. A guest list I curated by donor size and political standing. A list that took me six months to put together. And somehow, he convinced me he belonged here.
I should have trusted my intuition.
“I got all the V’s, daddy,” he’s whispering into my boss’s ear.
I, however, am going to vomit.Daddy?
“Relax, Hadley.” Callie’s voice rolls over the comm in my ear like honey. Good thing, too. I just spit my champagne back into the flute.
Fuck, I hope no one saw that.
“Vodka, Vroom, Vikes…”
“Callie, Callie.” I take two steps toward my boss, Leif, as the event crasher goes for his ass.
Full grab hand.
“Got him.” Callie grips the guy’s bicep and drags him away on my next relieved exhale.
It is,mildly, comical.
See, Callie is little. Fierce and feisty. Butohis she little.
Five two, curvy. Maybe one twenty.
This guy, whoever he is, is tall.Ish.
If tall were a suggestion instead of a fact, he’d be it. His pants are a little too tight. Black, too, which is why I mistook him for staff at the door. And his shirt is stained. I’m not even sure why I bought his line about the jean jacket, that it was the only one that matched his aesthetic.
Callie grumbles under her breath. She’s about to go full chaos goblin mode. It is honestly my favorite attribute of hers.
“Don’t move, asshole, or you’re fucked,” Callie hisses at the man.
Shit. I need to get to Leif and talk to him. Except Leif’s face is doing something I haven’t ever seen it do, not that I’m an obsessive coworker who watches her boss when he isn’t looking.
Which I’ve definitely done.
Leif isn’t watching the perp. He isn’t watching Callie drag the perp. He is watching me watch the perp. And whatever he is reading off my face is making his mouth do a thing. A sexy pouty thing.
One I can’t look at for longer than the five seconds I already have.
And Callie? I need to follow her because she’s unhinged.
Callie reaches for the baton, and I break out of the freeze into a brisk walk.
I rush past Leif, whisper, “I do apologize, sir,” and inhale.
I can’t help it. He smells like red velvet and that cooked icing my mother used to make from scratch on birthdays before she stopped making birthdays. I gulp it down like I am stealing it. Which I am. He is my boss. He pays me. I don’t get to have this. Oh but I want it.