15. Hunter

It was late into autumn, and the air had begun to turn bitterly cold. The metal of my car had absorbed the drop in temperature, permeating through my suit and overcoat as I leaned against it, reflecting the last bits of light as the final sliver of the sun dipped below the mountaintops.

I pulled my sleeve back to check my watch. Nearly twenty minutes since I walked out the door. Where is she?

My view of the doors to the office was obscured by a semi-truck making a delivery I could only assume was for the lunchroom. Passing headlights flickered on the main road behind me. Save for a handful of cars, almost everyone had already gone home, and as my patience dwindled, I considered making my way back inside to find her. The offices were a maze, to be fair. She could have gotten lost without a receptionist around to guide her.

I sighed and pulled my coat tighter around my shoulders before pushing myself off my car. The crunch of gravel beneath my feet echoed in the silence, met only by the cawing of crows on the other side of the parking lot. My breath hung in the air around me, her heat still boiling in my blood, still warming me from the inside out. She had been right—I wouldn't ever be able to stop picturing the way she'd touched me.

As I approached the semi, I could hear the cadence of a man and a woman. I was unable to make out the actual words, but the irritation in them was apparent. For the briefest of moments I wondered if maybe the delivery driver was arguing with one of our employees, and decided maybe I should step in.

Rounding the corner, the sight before me left me more bewildered than I could have imagined.

Lottie's wide, wild eyes met mine, her coat hanging from her shoulders, held together at the front by her trembling hands. She hadn't bothered to slide her arms through. In front of her, his back to me, stood a man, almost my height with shoulder-length dark hair, a thick plaid shirt, and jeans. His head slowly turned toward me, giving me his profile, and it was like the world turned on its goddamn axis.

Jared fucking Keelings.

Without saying a word, he stepped away from her, unknowingly using my moment of pure shock against me to make an escape. Before I could fully process what I was seeing, he was around the other side of the delivery truck, jogging to his car toward the opposite end of the parking lot. I didn't think he'd ever have the nerve to show up to our offices. Hadn't planned for it, hadn't considered it a possibility. I wasn't ready for it and I froze.

"Hunter," Lottie said, her voice small, worried, as she approached me. Her hand wrapped around my bicep, dragging my attention back to her instead of the weasel of a man I'd just let escape without even a scratch.

"Why were you talking to him?" I asked. Without meaning to, I'd dripped the words in silent accusations. I'd coated them in broken glass. I shouldn't have.

She blinked up at me, confusion knitting her brows together. "He was just asking me for directions."

Directions? The possibility of it seemed ludicrous. What would bring Jared Keelings here, of all places, to ask for directions? No, his appearance here was something more sinister, something directly affecting the Harris business. And on top of that, I heard arguing. I could hear the irritation in both voices.

The idea that formed was ludicrous, but possible. If Jared wanted to target us from the inside, wanted to target the most solid part of our business, Lottie was a good person to befriend. But the idea of her working with him, knowing what he was after, and choosing to take the company down was not entirely impossible, but definitely implausible.

Stranger things had happened, though.

"Hunter," Lottie said again, dragging me back to the moment. "Are you okay?"

My phone buzzed in the breast pocket of my suit jacket. "I'm fine," I lied, fishing through layer after layer to slide it out and into my hand. Brody's name flashed across my screen. "It's your dad. Did you tell him I drove you?"

She shook her head. "No, but my car's still at home. He probably put two-and-two together."

I took her by the hand, leading her around the semi and toward my car, lifting the phone to my ear and slotting it between my head and shoulder. "Hello?"

"Is Lottie with you?" he asked, a twinge of worry in his voice. "She's normally home by now."

"Yes sir." I cringed at the automatic formality of it. I was never formal with Brody, but years of wooing the parents of whatever woman I was sleeping with caused such a reply to slip out too easily. "Things ran a bit longer than expected at the office. I'm just about to drive her home."

"You realize it's nearly seven?"

"Yes sir," I repeated. "I'm sorry. I'll have her home shortly." God, who was I? I sounded like a fucking high schooler apologizing for getting his girlfriend home after curfew.

"Good. You and I should talk."

Well, shit.

————

The sun had well and truly abandoned us by the time my headlights lit Lottie's long, earthen driveway. I didn't often drive my Aston Martin, didn't like how low down to the ground it made me in comparison to my truck, but I'd pulled out all the stops for professionalism today. I wanted Lottie to do the best she possibly could, and she'd gone above and beyond that.

In more ways than one.

I tried to shun the image of my cock in her hand from my head as I shut off the car. "Your dad wants to talk to me," I said finally, breaking the comfortable silence we'd found ourselves in with just the radio to fill our drive.

She grunted from her seat, eyes closed, head resting on the window. If she'd fallen asleep, I hadn't noticed.

"Hey," I said gently, wrapping my fingers around her thigh and giving her a little shake. "Come on."

Her lashes fluttered open, the lightest twinge of pink blooming across her cheeks in the dimness of her father's porch light. "Sorry."

"It's fine," I chuckled.

I popped the button on her seatbelt for her and hopped out of the driver's seat, my dress shoes squishing in the mud as I rounded the car. There wasn't a single part of me that cared that I'd have to scrub it off of them later. The face she gave me when I opened her door and slinked my arm beneath her knees, hoisting her out like a goddamn bride, was so worth it.

"Let's get you inside."

"Hunter," she laughed, kicking her feet in an attempt to get me to put her down. But if I was already struggling to walk in the mud, there was no doubt it would turn into quicksand for her in those heels. "I think you might send my dad to an early grave if you cross the threshold with me like this."

"I'm already going to get an earful from Brody. What's one more?" I joked. I took the steps of her front porch slowly, careful not to drop her, taking as long as I could before the moment ended. I knew come tomorrow morning that brick wall would be back up in full force, but in that moment, I had my favorite version of Lottie. Easy, calm, pliable Lottie, who basked in the post-sex glow, the Lottie that made me question whether any of this was a good idea in the first place.

She reached out to knock on the door, apparently deciding it wasn't worth it to look for her keys, but before her knuckles could make contact the door opened wide.

Brody's glare was scathing. He looked at me like I'd set his entire house on fire, murdering his family, the villain in the story of his life. I'd been on the receiving end of that kind of glare from him a handful of times, usually when I went against his judgment and got a verbal lashing about trust and business. This time, however, it was personal. I was holding his daughter in my arms, he'd seen the photos of us circling the newspapers and the internet, and neither of us looked convincingly like we hadn't just had sex.

Lottie's buttons were all sorts of mismatched, for Christ's sake.

Slowly, gently, I set her back on two feet and watched as she slid through the space between her father and the door. She gave me a little wave before disappearing up the stairs, almost stumbling in her heels and gripping onto the railing for dear life.

Brody stepped out onto the porch and slammed the door behind him.

"Can't I come in?" I asked, heavy breaths of fog clouding around my head in the nearly freezing weather.

"Nope."

I sighed. This was going to be so muchfun.

"I'll cut straight to the point, Harris," he started, voice gruff and wrinkles creasing. He took a step toward me, one finger jutting out and poking into my chest. "I don't like this. I don't like it at all. I know you. I've seen how you are with women. Did you think for one second that I would approve?"

"No, sir." It was honest. I wasn't going to lie to him, not about this, even if I felt like I was getting a lashing from a parent.

"That girl deserves the world. Do you hear me?"

"I know that."

"Then don't act like you can fucking give it to her," he snapped. Spittle flew from his mouth, and every word pushed me further away from the front door, that angry finger poking me until I stepped back onto the steps. "Her last relationship was a goddamn nightmare, Harris. He was justlike you."

"I understand," I said. I knew it was the only thing I could say—there was no changing Brody's mind on this, and he was entirely right. Lottie and I weren't real, after all. It was just a ploy. She was in it for the breeding business, and that was all. Every part of me could appreciate where he was coming from, even if it sucked to be on the receiving end of it.

"I'm not just going to stand by and watch her get hurt again. She doesn't need another fucking playboy breaking her heart," he said. "And just because you're a client doesn't mean I won't beat the living daylights out of you if you become another name on the list of shitty men in her life."

I swallowed, unsure of what to say. I wanted to tell him the truth, wanted to tell him he had nothing to worry about because Lottie didn't have her heart in this to begin with. The guilt ate away at me as I took the final step off the porch back into the mud.

"I won't break her heart, Brody. I promise you."

He spat on the floor, his jaw twitching. "Then I hope to God she breaks yours."