The Promotion (Contemporary Reverse Harem 3)

To be honest, Cato was handsome as hell. Tall, fit, dark hair and eyes.

He’d confided in me before that he used to be chubby. Or was it fat? He’d even showed me an old photo.

Never would have known it was the same guy. Chubby kid, glasses, acne.

Time and adulthood had been good to Cato, no doubt about it. Solid as a rock, nice slim waist, broad chest.

Not that I’d ever seen him in anything other than his work clothes.

But still.

Nah, he wouldn’t be interested in me. He liked those young, skinny, model-types. Although, he never seemed to date any of them for very long.

I’d even wondered if he was gay. You never know.

Oh, what the hell was I thinking? I couldn’t date Cato, a guy from work, just like I couldn’t date my boss’s brother-in-law or some musician.

I turned back to my matchmaker emails.

I like money, fast cars, and women.

You’ll love my gun collection!

I’m here to meet one lucky lady.

Looking for someone who already has herpes.

God. Help. Me.

From under what rock did these cretins crawl?

I closed the matchmaking application and deleted every last email I’d gotten from them. I might not have had a ton of prospects, but I wasn’t scraping the bottom of the barrel, either. Money, guns, luck, and herpes were not anything I was interested in, thankyouverymuch.

I was done. Playing it safe could go to hell. Anson, Brade, and Cato—even though he didn’t yet know it—were getting another look. They really were nice guys, and they seemed to like me okay.

I wasn’t going to remain a middling paralegal for the rest of my days. No, now was the time to prove that I was a great benefit to the firm. I had a lot to offer, and they were going to start seeing it.

I wanted a damn promotion and of all things to hold me back, the lack of a boyfriend, fiancé, or husband was not going to be one of them.

My first step was to dial the matchmaking firm to tell them I wanted my goddamn thousand dollars back.

Chapter 8

Von

My last patient of the day was a rat. Named Cher. Yup, a male rate named Cher.

It was fun to treat a rat. I know that might sound strange, but my vet practice pretty much consisted of seeing dogs and cats all day. Anything other than that was a welcome change. I was always happy to see the odd snake, parakeet, or rodent. I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of them to kind of mix things up, in fact.

“Hello, ladies,” I said to the two attractive women who’d brought in the rat. They had to be sisters since they shared some similarities, but they sure w

ere different from each other.

One, whose name was Sparkle—whose name is Sparkle, anyway?—was a hippy dippy chick with ruffled bell bottoms and braids piled on top of her head. The other one, Maizy, looked like she’d just come from an office uptown with her professional-woman clothes and big, horn-rimmed glasses.

“I’m Doctor Varten. What’s going on with your little Cher?” My own dog—one of several— who had run of the place, was sniffing at the canvas bag holding the rat.

“Well…” Sparkle started to speak but her voice wavered and a big tear ran down her cheek. “I don’t know, Doctor, but he’s not eating much, and his eye seems runny.”