2. Chapter One

Chapter One

Amelia

T hat stupid fudging printer!

How useless could a piece of office equipment slash plastic garbage be?

Ugh .

I tried hitting the machine on the side to get it to do my bidding but it refused cooperation like most days. Sweat was pooling between my breasts and dripping down my spine. Oh shit, why wasn't it working properly when I needed it? Just this once?

"Miss Hendry? Do you have the paperwork I need for my appointment with that Norwegian bloke, whatever his name was again?" My boss, Mr Carson, poked his horned head into my office, a hopeful smile on his pudgy cheeks.

I forced my face into a grimace matching his and waved a small stack of papers in the air. All I had managed to extract from my stubborn printer was the first half of what he needed for his important meeting.

N?kken, the Norwegian furniture supplier, were searching for their new headquarters in Scotland and we had what they wanted. Nyland who was simultaneously their head of HR and in charge of the premise hunting, was prepared to drop a buttload of money on a building here in Gillam Park.

Skylar, one of our top estate agents, had spent ages on updating the exposé with professional photographs, and perfectly curated sales texts.

I had—I glanced at the clock above the coffee machine—an hour before he had to leave.I really couldn't mess this up.

"Mr Nyland, sir. I'll have the papers ready in a couple of minutes, sir," I trilled, and waited until he had left before dashing to my phone.

The ten seconds until they finally picked up felt like freaking forever thanks to the cheery Scottish folk tune we had as our on hold music.

"Welcome to the service desk, Murray speaking. How may I help?"

My heart did a little jolt when I heard the voice.

He's going to help me, it's all fine .

"Uh, hi, this is—"

He failed quite spectacularly to mask his resigned sigh, and I could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"Miss Hendry," he gritted out between clenched teeth. "What can I do for you?"

"I have a bit of a problem with my—"

"Don't say it." The man at the other end of the line took the kind of grounding breath therapists suggested for when you were close to a breakdown.

In, three, four, out, three four.

It wouldn't hurt to calm your own breathing, Amelia.

"I'll be up in five." He didn't wait for my reply but slammed the receiver down. Okay, they probably all had these fancy headsets, not actual receivers anymore. Whatever. Figure of speech.

Hanging up my phone, I ran a hand over my hair to straighten it and pulled my shirt down to get the wrinkles out, vowing to one day master the art of ironing so I, too, would look as sophisticated as my colleagues in their starched blouses. No idea why, but I'd never managed anything close to the effortlessness they carried themselves with.

When I wore more make-up other than mascara and tinted lip balm, I felt like a clown. And whenever I dressed up, it was as if a child had dug through their parent's wardrobe, put on pumps six sizes too big and a cocktail dress that trailed on the floor. Playing adult , yes that's what it was. So I went and bought myself a couple of nice basics to mix and match. Ironing still did my head in.

With a sigh, I got up, suddenly remembering the printer. It wasn't as if it mattered. Desmond had never looked at me that way .

A grin fought its way on my lips. He was grumpy, but never unkind, and, unlike most people, took the time to explain things to me.

I know I shouldn't be happy to need the service desk's help again , or fidget with excitement at the prospect of seeing him, but I couldn't help it. I had the worst crush of my life on Desmond Murray.

Darn it.

When it came to tech I was blooming useless. The huffs and heavy breathing our company's service desk team lead graced me with proved it only too clearly.

The basics I managed okay, but from a certain point on it just didn't make sense to me. I had no idea why and nothing I'd tried worked.

"Mia, you are at least twenty years too young to suck this much and to be this impressed by someone who is good with computers," my brother had informed me in an amused voice just the other day.

I'd talked only in passing about my struggles and how my colleague always came to my rescue.

"He's not saving you from a burning building, it's just printer support. Byron and Baker are better at computers than you," he'd teased.

But what did Aspen know? For all I cared he was saving me.

Saving you from losing your job at least.

I'd searched for a new job for ages, unwilling to accept having to support myself on minimum wage labour for the rest of my life.

Then I had seen an ad on ArgoS and got Asp to help me apply online.

One of the key requirements listed had been ‘good computer skills', and I'd only lied a little in my application. But come on, so many of the douchebags I'd worked with before had done it all the time. I hit all the other points and being a ninety-five percent match for a job was good enough for me.

Knowing I wouldn't have to eat only cheap carbs for the foreseeable future if I got the job had been another incentive to apply anyway. Kirkmuir wasn't even one of the country's most expensive cities but rent and bills had sent me spiralling with the pittance I'd made before. Getting a couple hundred crowns a month more was amazing and had taken a lot of stress off me. It was great to be able to treat my nephews to ice cream, or afford new clothes that didn't come from a charity shop. I loved thrifting, but it did make a difference if you had to or wanted to shop second hand.

I loved my work as the personal assistant of Samuel Carson, CEO of Frostfire Real Estate in Gillam Park, the industrial quarter of Kirkmuir. The building itself was gorgeous; a square four storey red brick with large windows that let a lot of natural light in. From the first time I set foot in the building, the high ceilings of the old jute mill had my heart; as had my boss.

Hulking and horned, with blue skin and a kind face, Samuel Carson didn't look at all the part of a successful business man. But he was. He'd built this company up from the ground, built it into one of the most successful real estate agencies in Kirkmuir.

I found him so…human, which was an odd thing to say about a Demon but he had a kind heart. There was no fooling me and my gut feeling, I could always tell. After my last run-in with a narcissistic supervisor, I would rather have lived on ramen for another five years than working for such a dick ever again.

Hard pass.

Carson seemed to like me, too, but I had fooled him into thinking I knew how to handle a computer. Before I could go down the rabbit hole of worrying about what would happen when he found out about it, another walking green flag entered my office, bringing with him as much contempt as I swore the printer would have shown me had it been sentient.

It was a shame to see Desmond Murray like this; a sour look marred his attractive face, the nerdy glasses pinched between the folds of his muzzle and his eyes.

I wasn't exactly proud of it, but I had developed an honest-to-God infatuation with the man.

Probably because he helps you out.

I definitely wasn't attracted to the bulging muscles under his black T-shirt with ‘Emotional Support Wolf' printed across the huge pecs.

Nope . They did nothing for me.

Desmond's shoulders tensed, but no surprise there. I rarely saw him relaxed and at ease around me, which I guessed was more thanks to me being the world's worst office worker than to his general nature.

It was hard to explain but he felt safe. For the first time in my life someone had managed to get me to understand at least a bit of computer stuff.

Desmond might be grumpy, but he took the time to answer all my questions. And no matter how dumb I felt for having to ask about even the smallest details, he never made me feel stupid. I liked that.

"Miss Hendry," he greeted me gruffly. "What is it this time?"

I shook my head to clear it.

Don't stare at his pecs, Mia .

"Uh, hi. The printer and I have a slight misunderstanding." I laughed loudly. It was either this or I was going to start crying, but it sounded so fake it made me cringe.

"I tried to get these papers ready for Mr Carson. They're pretty urgent, he has a meeting in an hour, but only half of it came out." I picked the small stack of papers up from my desk. "Then it stopped doing anything. And I checked the paper tray; it's full enough." God, that had been an embarrassing conversation a week into working here.

"There's no paper stuck in the printer and I tried turning it off and on again," I recounted all the first aid tips he had given me over the past few weeks. "But nothing worked and I really need these printed and—" My voice cracked.

Don't cry. You can hide in the storeroom when Carson's gone.

The tall Wolfman took one look at me and exhaled what felt like all the frustration with me he had stored in his body.

"Okay." He gave me a fleeting half-smile. "Let's have a look at it. Walk me through what happened?" Desmond prompted me in a tone fit for a Buddhist monk.