Relentless (Mason Family 4)

I make a face.

“What?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that no matter how much you love your job, being there for twelve, thirteen hours a day for five days …” I take in his reaction. “You’re here six days a week, aren’t you?”

He holds his hands out in defense. “What? I like my job.”

“You need a hobby. Here—I’m writing that down. Find Oliver a hobby,” I say, writing those very words in all caps across the top of the paper.

He laughs as he watches me.

“What do you do for fun?” he asks. “What are your hobbies, Shaye?”

The pen hits the paper with a thud.

I think about lying to him and making up something crazy. How fun would it be to say that I scuba dived on the weekends or flew planes? I’m this close to telling him that I skipped stones on the water in my free time but stop when my gaze catches his.

My lips are parted, but my fabricated hobbies don’t come through. I know he’ll call my bluff.

“I don’t actually have any hobbies,” I say. “But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have any.”

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Or maybe that should be reversed?” His forehead wrinkles. “Which is the boy—the goose or the gander?”

“I have no idea.”

We laugh, the sound of our voices blending together in easy waves.

One solid knock rips through the room before the door behind me opens, and two men walk in.

“Sounds like you two are hitting it off,” one of them says. He approaches me with a hand extended my way. “You must be Shaye.”

Oliver groans. It’s amusing.

I take the stranger’s hand, keeping one eye on a watchful Oliver. “I am. And you are?”

“I’m Holt. The CEO.”

“Co-CEO, thank you,” Oliver says pointedly at his brother. “Shaye, these are my brothers. That’s Holt, which you now know. The other one is Wade. Wade, this is Shaye.”

Wade looks much less interested in chatting me up. However, he shakes my hand dutifully.

Holt and Wade are nearly exact copies of Oliver—and Boone, for that matter. They all vary in the slightest degrees. Holt would be the older one of the group, if I were to make a snap judgment, thanks to the lines around his eyes and mouth. Wade, in my estimation, might be the most interesting. There are stories behind those walled irises. I’m sure of it.

Oliver, on the other hand, is a blend of the two—an exquisite one and the best looking.

By far.

I have no idea how people get any work done around here. It’s no wonder Genevieve just sits at her desk smiling.

“It’s nice to meet you both,” I say, maintaining my composure despite the company.

Wade sits in the chair beside me. A wave of expensive cologne ripples through the air. “Are we getting work done today, or are we having orientation?”

“Wade, why do you have to be a dick?” Oliver asks.

“Let him orientate, Wade,” Holt says, his words bordering on caution.

“It’s all right,” I say, taking a deep breath.

They all look at me.

I push a strand of hair behind my ear and focus on Oliver.

I need to win them over—show them that I belong here. There’s an undulation of something between them—about me—that I sense but can’t put my finger on. It was there in Holt’s Sounds like you’re hitting it off, it was thick in Wade’s Are we working today?, and the vibrations pulsed through the office with Holt’s thinly veiled warning to let Oliver be.

Assistants are probably befuddled by them, at least at first. I need to show them I’m not … even though I kind of am.

I sit up straight. “Wade is right. Oliver has a full day scheduled, Holt has a briefing with Boone about Greyshell at one, and Wade has an appointment in forty-five minutes. He might need to hurry things up in here.”

I hold my breath. Wade’s head whips to mine.

“How do you know that?” he asks. “How do you know where I need to be in forty-five minutes?”

“You’re Olive Green, right?” I ask.

A slow smile spreads across his handsome face.

“I took a brief look at the calendar this morning,” I tell him. “I saw it. There was a note that you should take your Brekker sketchbook.”

Wade looks dumbfounded as he turns to face his brothers. “Why are we wasting her on you guys?”

I beam.

“Shaye is my executive assistant,” Oliver says quickly.

For whatever reason, this makes Holt laugh. Oliver fires him a warning look.

“Shaye,” Wade says as sober as a judge, “when these two idiots—three because Boone is also in this office—push you over the edge, you have a standing invitation to work for me.”

“Why, thank you, Wade. That’s nice of you.” I glance at Oliver. “I’m hoping things will go swimmingly with Oliver.”

Wade scoffs. “I wish you the best of luck with that.”