hasn’t slept in a month.
“Are you okay?” I ask slowly.
“I’m fine. I’m going to send you a memo in about an hour. I need you to revise it and send it on to the whole company.”
A lump forms in my chest.
“Oh, God. Is Beatrice—I mean, is your grandma—”
“She’s alive and well,” he says quietly, then smiles at me. “Thanks to you once again. However, this will be the biggest memo to go out at this company since my grandfather died.” He turns away from me and sighs. “I’m not ready for this.”
“What’s wrong, Ward?”
“Everything. Still, the only thing to do is move forward, hopefully with a functional buzz to take the edge off. That’s partly why I needed the tie.” He points to my glass. “Bottom’s up.”
I put the drink to my lips and try to gulp it down, but it’s wretched.
It tastes like a scorpion just crawled into my mouth, stinging and intense. I roll my nose up and swallow.
I think it does damage going down. How did Brina and I ever do tequila shots?
I’m not sure if it’s this stuff or I’ve just lost the edge from my college days.
Ward watches me intently.
“Have another,” he says, refilling my glass.
Not his usual command. It’s more—curious, I think?
Humoring him, I repeat the dreadful process, putting the hellfire to my mouth and pulling in as much poison as I can, feeling my insides shrivel on the way down.
“Jesus.” He hangs his head and then straightens up like a bolt. “It really was one glass of wine. You were telling me the truth.”
My lips twist.
“I told you! But why do you suddenly believe me?”
“Because you clearly can’t drink for shit.”
He leans forward, snatches the scotch away, and puts it in the bottom drawer. “You’re dismissed.”
What the actual frick?
I hate this job. Mostly because nothing makes sense.
I’m only still here because I feel sorry for this jackass in front of me and can’t stand disappointing Beatrice Nightingale Brandt. He’s got another thing coming if he thinks he can treat me like some kind of toy for his head games, though.
“Well, what was that about?” I demand. “I deserve an explanation.”
“Just go. I have work to do.”
The tie box is still in my lap. I stand up and throw it at him, careful to let it tumble across the edge of his desk.
“You, sir, are a snarlysaurus and a ginormous Wardhole.” I really want to punctuate this sentence with my two-week notice. “You’re lucky I care about your grandmother, or you’d be down an assistant, effective immediately.”
His eyebrows dart up in surprise.
Why am I taking Trista’s midnight calls for this jackass again?
How is this even the same man from a week ago? A month ago?
When I look at him, it’s hard to find the hero who came dashing to my rescue, much less the demon kisser who wrecked my better instincts.
He stands, eyeing me slowly. “Paige.”
“No, just listen. The closest thing I could find to the color of your devil eyes is in the box. The business day’s over. I’m so tired and worn out I feel a cold coming on, I’m hungry, I haven’t had my hands in clay for over a month, I have a fresh pair of heels waiting at home, and...and I’m leaving.”
I push a broken rasp back into my mouth.
“The memo—” he starts, but I cut him off mid-growl.
“I’ll revise it and send it from home. You’re welcome.”
Dick.
He may be under a mudslide of stress, but it’s hard to find pity. All I want to do is throw him, if I was like ten times stronger and had a prayer of moving his slab of a body.
I take a deep breath on my way to the door.
Empathy, Paige. Empathy. Even madmen with sorcery blue eyes deserve it.
Right.
8
Office Morgue (Ward)
I check my Inbox for the hundredth time this hour, hoping to stamp out any fires in response to Paige’s email.
There are a few emails to answer, all right, which keeps me occupied since I can’t sleep.
Not with two nuclear bombs exploding on my head.
Grandma up and leaving the company, plus the realization that I tried to get Paige fired because she had a single glass of wine and can’t walk in heels, are too fucking much.
Who am I kidding?
Even seeing her since the day I kissed her into the wall at the hospital—and she kissed me back—has been a boulder on my back. I’ve kept my distance, constantly reminding myself that getting mixed up with her would be a fast