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As long as we’re with him, that’s fine.

Now that my beast had eaten, he was back to thinking about our mate.

“Remember that if you screw this up and you become Alpha, it’ll be your mess to fix.” I strode toward the stairs, leaving my words hanging and hoping Booker considered the daunting task of taking over. Of course he’d try to pass it off to his underlings, but if he failed, the council might snatch the role of Alpha from him. Or the business would go belly up and we’d be in bankruptcy court.

Joss had his head down studying spreadsheets and glanced up to give me a brief smile before returning to the reams of pages. Booker didn’t follow me up the stairs, so he’d probably taken himself off to an early lunch.

Fine! As long as he left Joss alone.

6

JOSS

I’d been putting in too much actual time at Redtail Global. My job was to consult, and I was taking on an active role. I’d always been good about keeping boundaries and also charging if I needed to go beyond the typical components of my position. But with Garner, he had my head in a tailspin, and I just couldn’t keep away.

It was a problem. I knew that from the get-go, but things had finally gotten to the point where I needed to do something about it.

This morning when I woke up, my first thought was wondering if Garner would like my slacks. For some reason that simple thought was exactly what I needed to snap out of this.

It was time to step back from the consulting job. I shot Garner a text letting him know that I’d check on them in a couple of days and to reach out if he had any issues.

Hitting that “send” button took far more energy than any of the monumental tasks I’d done since this project began. Sending it meant I wasn’t going to see him today. That... that stung reallydeeply, only solidifying my resolve. There was a thing called professional boundaries, and somehow, I’d lost track of each and every one of them.

Instead of staying home and having a pity party for one, which would’ve been really easy to do, I headed into my office. I even stopped at the coffee shop to get Harold the coffee special for the day, as I had my boring café au lait. Maybe if I pretended it was just a normal day, it would feel that way.

“Hey, you.” He rocked up as I walked in the doorway. “I wasn’t expecting you today. You’ve been all hands on deck at Redtail.”

“Yeah, they needed me… I meanus…They needed us… They needed Denmarke Solutions.” I was babbling.

Harold gave me a knowing look and pointed to the coffee. “What is that? That’s not my caramel.”

“No, it’s not. It’s the special of the day.”

“And whatisthe special?”

“Barista surprise.” It was a game I wouldn’t play with my coffee, but I didn’t love the sweet foo-foo stuff my friend did. If he hated it, it wasn’t far and I could grab him another, but the barista, Sam, had been so excited by her creation, it had been nearly impossible to say no.

“You know it’s going to be hazelnut.” His head hit the back of his chair. “I hate hazelnut coffee.”

“Nope, it’s not hazelnut. Promise. I asked.” I set the cup in front of him. “You think I’d chance giving you your least favorite flavor? Although I seem to remember a time in our lives when itwasyour go-to.”

“Yeah, that was before I decided to throw rum in my coffee. Alotof rum.” He’d been so sick the next day.

College was wild like that, because by any reasonable measure, most of us shouldn’t have survived that freshman year. We were just... yeah, making bad choices left and right. And yet, here we were, at the top of our game. Lucky as could be.

“Yeah, I came in today. I was thinking, maybe... maybe this should be your job.”

“Why is that?” He sounded gruffer than I’d heard him in a long time. I hadn’t meant?—

“I don’t know. It’s just—getting too involved.”

I wasn’t one to keep secrets from him, especially not when they had to do with work.

“Involved, meaning?” He got up and walked around his desk, and plopped in the chair beside me.

“You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?” He had a way of making me confess all things. Always had.

“Now that you say it like that,” he let out a chuckle, “yeah, IthinkI am gonna need to make you say it. Because what you’ve got to say is clearly a lot more interesting than what I had floating through my head.”