“It worked out perfectly,” I say. “You knew before he did. You must be clairvoyant?”
Ruby looks delighted to have a partner in teasing her brother. “No, just persistent.”
Ruby’s husband, Eagleton, saunters up looking gorgeous in a tuxedo. He’s Moon Co.’s corporate counsel and one of Blackthroat’s inner circle. Ruby flicks a speck of non-existent dust from his lapel. “Darling, would you point Brick and his date to their table?”
“Okay, hon,” Eagleton says. Ruby greets another guest, turning from her husband’s lingering, appreciative gaze. She must be used to it. “This way,” he waves to us to follow.
Our table is front and center. Blackthroat’s place card has him on the side closest to the stage steps. I point this out to him, and he grunts.
Eagleton is checking place cards. “Uh, one moment, Madi. It looks like there’s been a mixup.” Eagleton frowns at the place settings. “I’ll get Amanda.” He walks off, flagging a young woman who’s speaking to a caterer.
I sidle up to Blackthroat. “Do you typically banish your plus ones to another table?”
“I would have if I’d known it was an option.” But he doesn’t look happy. “You told her you were coming?”
“As ordered.” I keep my tone light.
Billy takes his place at the table and salutes me with not one, but two glasses of champagne. “Maybe she seats assistants elsewhere. By the kitchens.” He can’t wait for me to do a walk of shame to the back of the room. “So if a waiter calls in sick, you can step in and serve the meal.”
Regulating me to servant status. Typically rich fuck boy games.
I keep my expression serene. This doesn’t hurt, doesn’t sting. “Sounds smart.” I nod to his soon-to-be-empty drinks. “Although if she really was going for convenience, she’d place you near the bar. Or behind it.”
Blackthroat steps between me and his dick-head COO. “She made the mistake of letting Billy behind the bar before. We never did find that missing case of special reserve whiskey.”
“Hi Brick.” Amanda has arrived. From the starry eyes she gives Blackthroat, I know exactly who messed up the place setting.
“I need a spot at my table for my assistant, Madison Evans.” Is there extra emphasis on the word assistant?
“Madi,” I correct, not that anyone cares.
“Oh, ooh.” Amanda pulls a regretful face before even looking at the table assignments. “Your table is completely full, Brick.” She offers a fake wince.
I’d love to slap that smug expression right off her face.
“Figure it out, Amanda.”
Classic Blackthroat. I love the guy. I really do.
“Um, okay, well…” She bites her lip and makes a show out of looking over the table assignment lists.
Meanwhile, Billy waves his empty glass at me. “Refill?” he mouths, like I’m the waitress.
I press my lips together, so I don’t tell him to fuck off. Still smirking, Billy gets up and heads to the bar.
“Brick Blackthroat!” An elegant older woman, possibly in her seventies, glides over with a broad smile on her face.
“Madison?” he murmurs.
“Eleanor Harrington, heiress to the Torrent Cosmetic company and well-known philanthropist,” I murmur back.
“How good to see you.” The older woman offers her hand to Blackthroat. The wealth of emerald and diamonds glittering at her ears, wrists and neck threaten to blind me. There are disco balls with less sparkle. “Please, introduce me to your date.”
“My assistant. This is Madison Evans. Madison…”
“Eleanor Harrington,” I finish for him. “How wonderful to meet you.”
The woman’s penciled brows shoot up. “Oh, goodness. You know me? I’m flattered, darling. So, you work for Brick?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s an absolute honor.”
Blackthroat makes a slight snorting sound beside me.
She peers at me with interest. I can’t imagine what she finds so fascinating. Blackthroat made it clear that I’m not his date, just his assistant. “I’m sure you’re very talented if Moon Co. has snatched you up.”
“Oh, well…”
“She’s brilliant,” Blackthroat says firmly. Once again his hand has found its way to my lower back, and just like that, I’m his date, and not just an employee. I try not to love the feel of it too much.
“Where did you go to school, darling?”
“Princeton.”
It’s one thing to be treated like the help by the likes of Billy and Amanda. It’s another for a random guest to pay attention to me, especially an older socialite. She’s not interested in me because of my cleavage.
“You must be very bright. I’m sure Mr. Blackthroat is paying you well, but if you’re looking for a change, I could probably match it.” Eleanor hands me a card.
“Oh, um…” I stare at it dumbfounded then glance up at Blackthroat to see how he’s taking it.
After Ms. Harrington leaves, I ask, “Is that normal? To try and poach someone’s employee right in front of them?”
Blackthroat seems as puzzled as I am. His brows are down, his gaze still on the older woman’s back. He takes the card from me and brings it to his nose, which is bizarre. I take it back and sniff it, but there’s no perfume or other scent.
“Huh,” Blackthroat says.
“What is it? I feel like I’m missing something important here.”
Blackthroat looks thoughtful. “So do I,” he says, but offers no more, other than to take the card back from me and drop it in his pocket.
“Brick, I can squeeze your assistant in at a table in the corner-” Amanda pipes up.
“I want her at my table, Amanda. Beside me. Figure it out.”
“Of course, Brick.”
I want to throat punch her for calling him by his first name. I mean, where does she get off?
Apparently, Blackthroat also has had enough because he uses the hand at my back to propel me to the seat next to him. He plucks the place card and swaps it with the one across the way. It bears the label for William White, which I know isn’t going to go over well, but I sit, because my feet are killing me. Blackthroat settles beside me and pulls out the index cards his sister gave him.
“Do you need anything?” I ask after watching him for a few moments in silence.
He hands me the cards. “Look them over. Make any changes.”
Classic Big Bad Boss. Very little direction, which means lots of room to screw up, but I take it as total leeway. It’s a place for me to thrive. I pull a pen out of my tiny purse and go through the cards, tweaking language for smoothness and adding some dry, self-deprecating humor jokes to make Blackthroat seem less stiff and more engaging.
The ballroom has filled with guests by now, and Ruby whizzes by, telling Blackthroat he needs to get onstage in five minutes. His other exec-bros arrive at the table, each with a stunning woman on their arm.
I hand the cards back, and Blackthroat reads through them, his lips curving slightly when he notes my changes. He doesn’t comment, just gets up, looking perfectly relaxed and at ease for someone who protested giving a speech at all. He taps the back of his seat and tips his head, which I interpret to mean I should take his chair. Just in time because Billy arrives with a drink in either hand. It takes a split second for him to figure out where his place card went, and when he does, he looks like he wants to gut me.
But I can’t pay attention to anyone but Blackthroat when he gets up on stage. “Good evening,” he murmurs, looking around the room. The room instantly hushes under the weight of his silent perusal, and they all rush to take their seats. “On behalf of the Blackthroat Foundation, I’m thrilled to welcome you all here tonight.” He may not seem personable one-on-one, but on stage, the guy is absolutely magnetic. Every pair of eyes in the place rivets on him. “I’m Brick Blackthroat, and I can take absolutely no credit for tonight’s event,” he reads the lines I wrote for him. “That all goes to my talented and passionate sister, Ruby.” He lifts a hand to indicate Ruby, who is standing near the reception table.
She laughs and ducks her slender shoulders.
His gaze flicks to me before it sweeps across the room again, and my heart beats faster. “You may know me as the guy who made it big in crypto.” He offers a half-smile, earning a laugh from the warm crowd. “But rest assured, we won’t be handing out grants in Moonshot coin this year.” He slips the index card to the back of the pile and looks back up. “We’ll save that for next year.”
Another laugh.
“As you may know, land conservation is of paramount interest to our foundation, with the particular interest of preserving wildlife corridors to re-enable the natural roaming habits of endangered animals.”
“To that end, we have a number of large grants to award tonight to groups that are making concerted efforts to preserve habitat. I will let each of them tell you about their individual projects in a little bit, but for now, please get comfortable and enjoy your dinner. Thank you.”
The crowd loves him. Everyone claps and beams warm smiles in his direction as he walks off stage and over to me.
And now, of course, the seating dilemma. Because Amanda never found me a chair at his table, and I’m in the wrong seat.
I stand. “I’ll go see if Ruby needs some help. “
* * *
Brick
I want to murder that little she-wolf Amanda for purposely not fixing the seating dilemma. If she worked for me, she’d already be fired, but she’s Ruby’s employee, and I don’t step on my sister’s toes when it comes to running the foundation.
It’s true, no one else would give their coveted plus one spot to their assistant. At a hundred thousand dollars a ticket, they’d at least hire an escort or invite the most beautiful, glamorous man or woman they know to grace their arm.
Madison is the only female I could stand to sit beside me. I’m still pretending my attraction to her isn’t affecting me, but it’s getting harder and harder.
But I don’t want to examine my motives in bringing her here.
I especially don’t want to sit through a dinner with my best friends trying to figure them out, either.
“Stay with me, we’ll make the rounds,” I say. Keeping her at my side, I do my duty stopping by tables to welcome the rich and powerful-human and shifter alike-of Manhattan.
Then I put my hand on Madison’s low back-an undeniable pleasure-and steer her straight out the side door.
“Where are we going?”
“Out. Come on, let’s find the food before it comes in.”
Outside the door, the waiters have rolling carts stacked high with the covered plates. I grab two. The waiter simply stands back. I don’t know if he knows who I am or is just giving me the benefit of the doubt, but he doesn’t ask for any explanation.
“Get some silverware,” I tell Madison.
The waiter quickly produces two napkins and silverware and hands them to Madison. “May I bring you beverages somewhere, sir?”
I take a quick glance at his cart. Underneath it are bottles of sparkling water. “I’ll take one of those Perriers,” I tell him, and he hands it to Madison. “No glasses?”
“No, thank you.” I walk off leaving Madison to trail behind me, forgetting how much shorter her steps are in the gown and heels.
I lean my shoulder against the doors to another conference room and look in. It’s trashed, requiring cleanup from another event. I keep walking. The next conference room has an event going. I pull back with a wince and Madison giggles.
I flash back to years past, when I was a teen forced to attend this ball. My mother and father sparkled in the spotlight, pretending to be the perfect couple for anyone watching. After a while, I couldn’t stomach the lie, and I’d sneak out, just like this.
Those days, I’d be alone. Tonight, I have Madison at my side. And it’s getting harder to deny that it feels so right.
I end up finding a large window in a quiet hallway that overlooks the city. “This will work.” I lower myself to sit in the wide windowsill and set the two plates down in front of me.
Madison eyes the arrangement. “I can’t eat with a plate on my lap. I will stain this twenty thousand dollar dress, and will have to pay the rental penalty.”
I hold my hand out for the silverware rolls and flick them both open, spilling our silverware into my lap. “Come here.” I beckon.
She laughs softly as she perches on the window sill across from me. I reach out and tuck one of the napkins into the straps of her gown, like a bib. The second one I spread across her lap. “There. Problem solved. That’s a better view for me, anyway.”
She looks down at her covered chest, and her lips curve. She doesn’t even pretend to be offended or fish for an explanation. She acts like my obedient subordinate, but then she wears the dresses I so love to hate. Or is it hate to love? Either way, it’s another point to her in the sartorial war.
“How did you end up on Wall Street, Madison?” I can’t remember the last time I had dinner with an employee like this, one on one. I don’t think I ever have. But my wolf is loving it. When it comes to Madison, I break all my rules.
“I was done with school, so I got a job.” She looks at her plate while she answers me, paying a lot of attention to cutting her steak with the steak knife.
“What was your degree in?”
“Sociology.”
“You didn’t want a job in your field?”
“I applied to a few, but they don’t pay. And I wanted to make bank, so…”
I shake my head. “Something about it doesn’t quite fit with you.”
She goes still, which tells me I’m onto something. “What are you saying?”
“You seem more of the bleeding heart type. Not one to sell out for money.”
She clenches her utensils tighter, sawing through her steak with savage jerks. “Some of us have to work for a living.”
Touchy. “What do your parents do?”
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