The Favor

Probably because the guy’s wife wanted his company. I’d never met him, but I knew he was married. How? Single men held no appeal for Heather. She was only ever attracted to a man if he was taken. Once he’d left his wife, Heather lost interest in him and soon after moved on. But not before said man had lavished her with expensive gifts.

Her eyes darted to me. “Maybe I could ask him if he has a brother for you. You’ve been single for too long. You shouldn’t give up just because you’ve so far struggled to hold a man.”

“Heather,” drawled Wyatt. It was a warning.

She widened her eyes. “What? I’m just saying.”

“As it happens, Vienna has a man,” Melinda cut in. She squeezed my hand. “I’m real pleased for you, sweetheart.”

“And who is this man?” asked Heather, her gaze hard.

“His name is Dane Davenport,” said Melinda. “I have to say, I love the name Dane. I’m really looking forward to meeting him.”

“Wait, are you talking about her boss?” Heather looked at me. “You’re dating your boss?”

“Yes,” I said before sipping my drink.

“And here I was thinking you were smart.” Heather snorted. “Sleeping with your boss is a sure-fire way to eventually lose your job.”

“Not if they have serious feelings for each other, which they do,” said Melinda. “Perhaps you could try being happy for her.”

Heather’s eyes flared. She drew a long breath through her nose and then shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll be back in a few hours. Don’t worry, I won’t be trunk. I mean, drunk.”

I narrowed my eyes. She’d said “trunk” on purpose, knowing the memories the word could spark—memories I quickly shoved back into their mental drawer.

“Heather,” snapped Wyatt.

Smirking, the bitch swanned back into the house and then left.

The tension slipped from my shoulders and I took another swig of my drink. There was seriously a special place in hell reserved for that woman. “Junior, where are my cuddles?” After I’d spent a good few minutes talking with and making a fuss of him, I watched as he crawled into his tent at the back of the yard.

Melinda rested her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry about Heather, sweetheart.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” I told her. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Before the woman could insist that she was somehow at fault for Heather being the way she was, I added, “On another note, you should know that the dog’s trying to dig his way under the fence again.”

Wyatt cursed and stood. “Ranger, we’ve talked about this.”

It really was astonishing how many women tried wrangling their way into Dane’s office to either see or lie in wait for him. They’d probably wait naked—I’d never know for sure, because I never allowed them to go inside. No one entered his office unless he was there and okayed it. But the attractive, scantily dressed redhead in front of me just was not getting that.

Candace sighed. “I only need a minute of his time.”

What people didn’t seem to realize was that pretty much every minute of Dane’s day was accounted for. He often went from meeting to meeting—some were internal, some were external, some were short, others went on for hours. Such was the life of many CEOs.

I always kept an hour of his day free in case there were any last-minute fires to put out or he needed a little “me” time to reflect. Today, there had been no fires, and he’d declared that he wanted to spend his free hour “undisturbed.”

“If you’d like to leave a message, I will pass it on to Mr. Davenport,” I said.

She gestured at his office. “Oh, come on, he’s right there.”

“He made it clear to me that he wasn’t to be disturbed.”

Her mouth curved into a confident, sultry smile. “Trust me, he’ll want to see me.”

Ugh. “Then I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to hear that you left him a message, and he’ll get straight back to you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You know, Hope warned me that you might stop me from seeing him. She said she had a feeling that you want him all to yourself. Like you’d have a chance with him.” Candace rested both hands on my desk. “I’ve tried to be nice about this, but I’m just about done with you. Go and tell him I’m here, and do it now, or I’ll have you fired.”

Oh, how original. “You’ll have me fired?”

“I’m one of his sister-in-law’s best friends. What do you think he’s going to say if I tell him that you were being such a rude little bitch to me?”

I leaned toward her and pitched my voice low. “I think the real question is … what are you going to say when people ask why security guards dragged you out of o-Verve? You think I won’t call them? I will. I do it, like, all the time. Seriously, this sort of shit happens so often they have this drill down to a science. You can become familiar with this drill, or you can leave a message for Mr. Davenport and go. I’ll let you choose.”