The Beast (Black Dagger Brotherhood #14) - J. R. Ward Page 0,55

to the Brother Vishous. When the male answered, Assail uttered only three words prior to hanging up once again.

“I am in.”

“Suuuuure, I’ll stay late. No problem. Not like I have anything better to do.”

As Jo Early sat behind her reception desk, the rest of the real estate office was empty, nothing but a lingering mishmash of colognes and the strangely depressing Muzak overhead to keep her company. Well, that and the frickin’ ficus bushes on either side of her.

Those things dropped their leaves like they were on a constant molt-down—and her OCD just wouldn’t let her relax unless the floor was clean. Then again, she didn’t have to do stomach crunches at the gym.

Not that she went to a gym.

Checking her phone, she shook her head. Seven o’clock.

The plan, the “favor,” she was doing for her boss was to stay here until he brought three contracts in with signatures so she could scan them and e-mail them over to the various buyers’ brokers. Why he couldn’t feed the things into the machine himself and do a little PDF’ing was a mystery.

And okay, maybe she was part of the problem, too.

Not that she was proud to admit it.

Looking up over the lip of the desk counter, she focused on the smoky glass doors that opened to the outside. The office was located in an up-market strip mall that had a hair salon where the cuts started at a hundred bucks—and that was just for the men, a boutique that displayed two pieces of barely-there clothing in its window, a glass-and-china shop that sparkled even on gray days, and, at the far end, a jewelry store that the trophy wives of Caldwell seemed to approve of.

Going by the place’s pneumatic clientele.

“Come on, Bryant. Come on…”

Although really, where did she have to go. Home to Dougie and the crop circle arguments? Now there was a party.

As a telephone rang back where the offices were, she woke up her computer and stared at Bryant’s calendar. She put his appointments into Outlook when he texted or called to tell her to. Scheduled things like valid real estate meetings, but also the service for his BMW and visits by the pool man for his place over in that new development. Reminded him to call his mother on her birthday, and ordered flowers for the women he dated.

All the while wondering what he would think if he knew who her parents were.

That little secret was what she soothed herself with when he’d come in on a Monday morning and whisper that he’d been out with a divorcée on Friday and a personal trainer on Saturday and then had a brunch with someone else on Sunday.

Her true identity was armor she used to fight against him. In a war he was utterly unaware of them being engaged in.

Closing out his busy life, she stared at the logo on the screen. Bryant’s last name, Drumm, was the second in line—because the firm had been started by his father. When the man had died nearly two years ago, Bryant had stepped into his shoes, as well as his prime office space, in the same way he did everything else—smiling and with charm. And hey, it wasn’t a bad strategy. Say what you would about the guy’s playboy lifestyle, he could move a ton of real estate and look good doing it.

Caldwell, NY’s own Million Dollar Listing star.

“Come on, Bryant … where are you?”

After a re-visit of her already-twice tidied desk, she checked the floor under the right ficus, picked up a leaf and tossed it, sat back and …

What the hell, she went onto YouTube.

Dougie had posted that stupid footage on his channel—a rocking destination with a grand total of twenty-nine subscribers. Of which, like, four were Dougie himself in different sock puppets and two were spammers with low standards. As she hit the arrow to watch the forty-two-second clip all over again, she turned on the speakers. The sound track was right out of amateur-central, a combination of too-loud rustling as her roommate held the iPhone up and a distant, not-so-quiet roaring.

Okay, so yes, it certainly looked like something Jurassic-ish out in the middle of that field. And yeah, there seemed to be a lot of clutter on the ground, but who knew what all that was. It was only a camera phone capturing the footage, and maybe that was just the way the trampled area looked to its lens.

She played things a couple more times. Then sat back.

There