Vance takes the hint and leaves me to my misery.
I stare out at the whirling snow, and something in me cracks. I can’t do it anymore-live this divided life. Living in a human world with pressures from every side.
Leading the pack.
Running the business.
Fighting the Adalwulfs.
Knowing what to do about my mother.
Fuck. My problems are nothing compared to how my father must have felt to have fate pair him with the one female who would literally tear his life apart and then end it.
Inexplicably, my thoughts are drawn back to my beautiful brainiac assistant.
Damn.
Flying here on the day before Thanksgiving to make sure I didn’t lose the deal. She’s one in a million-no, one in a billion. A rush of gratitude-the thanks I should have expressed when she arrived-rushes through me.
What would life be like if I were simply human? Could I marry a girl like that?
The thought of it lifts the corners of my lips. The fantasy of having such a simple life. Just being a billionaire boss getting it on with his hot, sassy secretary.
I like that fantasy.
Too bad it can’t be mine.
There’s no room for frivolity in this world. I don’t get to have the administrative assistant. I have to mate an alpha spawn. A she-wolf with a pedigree to keep the bloodline pure. Preferably one fate chooses for me to keep me from moon madness, not that anyone in my family has succumbed to it. The Blackthroat will is too strong, or so my grandmother used to say.
A stir of misgiving has me thinking about Madison again.
But that’s crazy.
Fate would never pick a human for an alpha wolf.
It simply doesn’t happen.
Madi
I wake feeling just as raw emotionally as I was going to sleep. I’m in a strange place in the servants quarters, nursing an enormous rejection hangover and feeling lonely as hell. I shower and put on a pair of warm leggings and a sweater from Ruby then go and knock on the pilot’s door to ask what time we can leave.
“We’re not going anywhere.” John Acker is a tall man, and he towers over me now with a glower that would make a lesser person cringe. “Call your family and let them know you won’t be home for Thanksgiving.”
I blink at him. “The weather is still that bad?” My brain is slow processing information this morning.
“The weather is total shit. I doubt we’ll even get out of here by tomorrow. And yes, I do blame you for ruining my family’s Thanksgiving.”
I wince. I guess I deserve that. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so am I.” He shuts the door in my face, and I swallow hard.
Dang it.
I go back to my room to call my mom and give her the shitty news. Then I text Aubrey.
She calls me back immediately. “What happened? What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I say dully. “I just got snowed in, and there’s no way to get out of here during the storm.”
“So you’re snowed in with your sexy billionaire boss?” She infuses her question with all kinds of innuendo.
“I hate him,” I say.
“Wait, what?” Aubrey sobers suddenly, finally catching onto my black mood. “What happened?”
“I went out of my way to make sure he didn’t lose this land deal he’s been working on for months, and he totally yelled at me and then acted like having to put me up for the night was a big problem. He told the housekeeper to put me in the servant’s quarters.”
“What?” she gasps in outrage.
“Okay, maybe it’s not the servant’s quarters, but that is certainly how it feels, and I’m sticking to that narrative.” I wrap my anger around me like a warm scarf to keep from sinking into the self-pity that’s been threatening ever since I arrived.
“Okay, what makes you think it’s the servant’s quarters?” Aubrey asks, putting on her practical voice.
I try to remember what he’d said. When I do, a fresh stab of pain sinks straight between my ribs. “He said
I don’t know what you’re going to do here until the weather clears. You can’t join us.”
“Oh shit,” Aubrey says. “That’s cold. He’s an asshole. You should quit.”
Tears burn my eyes. I hold back the sob in my throat. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it.”
“Well, I’m available all day if you just want to stay on the phone with me. I’ll be your Thanksgiving phone date. Okay?”
“I’ll figure it out,” I rub my nose, trying very hard not to completely lose it. “I’ll call you later if I need to, okay?”
“Okay. Hugs. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I hang up. I’m hungry, but I can’t face leaving my room. I don’t like how off my game I am right now. Instead, I prop myself up with pillows on the bed and read a book on my phone’s ereader.
Finally, when it’s nearly eleven and I’m starving, I decide to put my big girl panties on and get some food. The minute I hop off the bed, the door is thrown wide, and I’m assaulted by the sight of a lethally handsome and very pissed-off boss.
Blackthroat holds a small plate with a few assorted pastries and a mug of what smells like my favorite-a vanilla latte. His dark hair looks rumpled like he’s been shoving his fingers through it, and he’s wearing a sweater and khakis, like last night. Unlike last night, I now have a moment to take him in. His casual attire shouldn’t look sexier than his usual suit porn, but somehow he makes it magnificent. He could make a killing as a men’s fashion model with his long legs and broad shoulders coupled with the chiseled jaw.
Except his expression is sour, as if the offering he’s bringing isn’t a thoughtful treat, but the smelliest garbage. He sets them both down on the dresser by the door.
His gaze sweeps across me and around the room.
“Way to knock,” I throw at him like a sulky teenager.
Dammit, I was going to take my power back. This is what he does to me.
“I heard you haven’t come out to eat.” He says it not like he’s concerned, but rather that it’s a fatal character flaw of mine. “I don’t have the time or patience to attend to you, Madison. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but since you’re here, you might as well get some work done.”
I draw back in shock. I didn’t think he could offend me more, but he has.
“You know what?” I snap. “I’m done. You win. I quit. You can take your work, and just fuck right off, Brick Blackthroat.”
“You’re not quitting.” He says it like he forbids it. As if he can stop me.
The urge to stomp off and make a grand exit overcomes me. I grab my boots by the door and shove my feet into them, then stuff my arms into my coat. “You’re right. I’m not quitting. You’re going to tell Genevieve Small that you fired me, so I can collect unemployment.”
“Madison.”
“You’re going to tell her, or I’m going to make a big stink about getting spanked by my boss over the conference room table.”
To my satisfaction, Blackthroat turns pale.
Good.
“Just hold up.” He reaches for me but checks the movement before he actually grabs my arm.
I pick up a muffin from the plate he brought. “I’m going to cool off outside. When I come back, I will fend for myself in the kitchen. You don’t need to bring me food and berate me for not getting it myself. And don’t worry, I have no plans to join you for your holiday feast. I know where I belong.” I stomp out of the room, carrying the muffin with me, not caring if I drop crumbs all over his hallway.
“Madison, you can’t go outside, we’re in the middle of a fucking blizzard.” The last word dies on Blackthroat’s lips, and his heavy steps behind me stop.
In front of me, standing at the junction of the hallway, is an elegant woman in her late fifties or early sixties who bears a strong resemblance to Brick and Ruby.
I’m too wrapped up in my own dramatic exit to give it too much thought, though. I sweep past her and out the first door I can find, grateful for the bite of wind against my face and the deafening quiet it brings.
* * *
Brick
“Don’t speak to me,” I warn my mother. She’s been creeping around this fucking lodge trying to talk to me, but I am not having it.
I hate that she just overheard the exchange between me and Madison.
Fuck, did she hear the part about me spanking her? Even I have enough of a conscience to feel shameful over that.
I’m an asshole. Vance was right-I went too far. Or she didn’t roll with it the way she usually does. And somehow it’s a thousand times worse having my mother witness it.
The mother who is dead to me.
And now, I just let Madison go because having my mother show up discombobulated me.
Maybe I should let her cool off… I don’t know.
I was admittedly horrible to her. She was right-berating her for not getting her own food was unkind. So was yelling at her for risking her life to get here.
I blame it on my wolf, who for some reason went frantic at the thought of her not eating this morning, like I’m her mate who is required to provide for her, and I was shirking my duty. I kicked up a fuss in the kitchen making them figure out how to make her a vanilla latte when they didn’t have the syrup, and then I was mad that we didn’t have her favored chocolate croissants.
Right now, my wolf is going apeshit about her quitting, but I’ll fix it.
Apologizing to employees isn’t in my repertoire, but for Madison, I’ll try. There’s no way I’m letting that girl walk.
Madison
It feels good to be outside. Away from the confines of the house. Away from Blackthroat. Except thinking of him makes my eyes burn again.
Am I really quitting? Leaving things this way?
Part of me doesn’t want to. And yet I knew when I began, this day would come. This job was never supposed to mean anything to me. He was never supposed to mean anything to me.
Damn him.
I stomp through the drifting snow until my feet get cold inside my boots, and my face is numb. I don’t know how long it’s been. Maybe thirty or forty minutes. Enough time for my thoughts to go in a complete circle forward and backward and then forward again.
Then I turn around to head back.
Except… fuck.
It’s a total white-out. Like, I can’t see ten feet in front of me.
Okay, no problem. I will follow my tracks in the snow. I keep my focus on my prints and pick up my speed.
Damn, it’s cold out. Like, really, really cold.
A fact I probably would’ve noticed sooner had I not been in such a foul temper.
I push back the thread of anxiety that starts up about the state of the weather and how stupid I was to go out in it. I’ll make it back to the lodge before my tracks get covered by snow.
Totally.
No problem.
Except…the prints are already getting fainter. I pick up my speed. As panic presses closer, I start to jog.
Have I mentioned I’m not all that coordinated? I trip on something in the snow-a tree root, maybe? -and pitch head first onto my belly.
That part would’ve been fine. Totally manageable. Except I keep sliding. With the snow drift and the white out conditions, I didn’t notice the edge of some kind of gully or ravine, and I’m tumbling, skidding, sliding down into it.
It’s not horrible-not like a cliff. It’s maybe fifteen feet. I pick myself up out of the snow drift and dust myself off. Nothing appears to be broken. I’ll probably be a bit bruised. But I have far bigger problems than bruises. Now I don’t know how to get out of it. The slope is slippery, and I don’t want to hike too far away from where I fell in because my footprints-literally the one thing that’s going to get me safely back to the lodge-are up there.
I can’t lose them.
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