Page 8 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Cass assumed Jamie would take a day or two to get over herself, and then things would go back to normal. That Jamie might even apologize for blowing things way out of proportion and acting like getting in good with Sig was more important than her friendship with Cass.

That did not happen.

Jamie froze her out completely all week.

Ordinarily, Cass would have sought her sister’s advice.

Raven had wined and dined and charmed her way through a variety of cities around the globe, and she had a knack for inspiring the admiration of others.

She didn’t have friends , though. At least not many.

Chief among her friends was the person Cass turned to instead.

Though he was doubtless busy running the world or some such, Ian gave her predicament due consideration, stroking idly at his lower lip with a manicured fingertip and rotating his chair slowly back and forth, back and forth.

Behind his desk, a floor-to-ceiling window offered a breathtaking view of the city and a corner of the Park, the fat, slowly falling snowflakes the clouds had begun sifting over Manhattan an hour ago.

“Hm,” he hummed. “What have you tried so far?”

Cass uncrossed her legs, leaned the other way in her chair, and recrossed them.

“I gave her a day to calm down. Then the next morning I said, ‘Good morning.’ I say that every morning. She doesn’t respond.

I’ve asked her if she wants to get coffee.

If she wants to walk over to the art building together. She pretends I don’t exist.”

Ian rotated his chair some more, and steepled his fingers together in a pose that always made her want to laugh. It was so performative, but he pulled it off. “Have you apologized?”

“No. I shouldn’t have to. I didn’t do anything to her.”

Ian cocked his head, long, auburn hair shifting against his back like a curtain. “In her eyes, your actions have prevented her from making friends with this Sig person.” The way he said Sig’s name made her grin. But only for a moment.

Then she pulled a face. “Sig’s a wanker. She’s better off without him.”

“Did you tell her why he’s a wanker?”

“No.” She fidgeted with the hem of her oversized hoodie, picking at a spot of white paint there. “I didn’t want to accuse him of something and have it blow back on me. I don’t even know for sure that he was the one who drugged my drink. It could have been anyone there.”

“So tell her that: don’t blame Sig specifically, but tell her that someone at the party tried to harm you, and you don’t think either of you should spend time with that crowd.”

“I could .” And she’d thought about it a lot over the past week. “I don’t know if she’ll listen at this point.”

“Hm.” He made another considering face, then glanced toward the door and gestured with two fingers as his assistant entered the office, bearing a tray with steaming white mugs of coffee for both of them.

Cass’s latte sported a foam fern leaf, and she accepted the packet of imported chocolate biscuits that came along with it when Denise offered them.

When she was gone, and they were both sipping, Ian said, “I believe you have two options. One, you can continue to wait, and hope that she values your friendship more than some ephemeral idea of popularity.”

“You’re really busting out the expensive words today.”

He nodded, corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk.

“Or you can take action. I think you have to address your fight. You might even have to apologize—even,” he continued, lifting a finger off his mug when she started to protest, “if you shouldn’t have to.

The thing that marriage has taught me is that sometimes you say you’re sorry to make peace, even if you don’t believe you’ve done something wrong.

” His gaze rolled over toward the bookshelf, the framed photo he kept there of him with Alec. “Also, makeup sex is brilliant.”

“I’m not having makeup sex with my friend, Ian.”

“Quite right.” He blinked, and a slow, devious grin split his narrow face. “This is the point at which your sister would like me to discourage you from having sex with anyone. But what are cool pseudo-uncles for if not to encourage fun?” He winked.

She wrinkled her nose, face heating. “You’re the same age as my brothers. I don’t have any uncles.”

“Pity.” He gestured to himself extravagantly. “Allow me to offer my services.”

She snorted.

The intercom on his desk beeped, a polite chime. Denise’s voice piped through. “Mr. Shaman? Mr. Ronaldo is on line one.”

“Thank you, Denise.”

Cass stood. “I’ll get out of your hair. Thanks.”

“Any time, darling.” He cast a glance toward the window, and the picturesque screen of snow falling. “Do you want me to have the car pulled around for you?”

“No, thanks. I’ll Uber.”

He shuddered to show what he thought of that.

Cass drained the last of her latte, burning her mouth in the process, and headed out of the office with a final wave.

Ian was already putting the phone to his ear as he waved back.

The Jean-Jacque de Jardin offices were on a different floor from Raven’s offices, and the elevator was empty, so Cass made it out of the building without bumping into her sister, or any of her sister’s staff who might mention that she was in the building.

Her Uber driver was probably her age, and excited about the snow. She dropped her half of the conversation a couple of times, preoccupied with thoughts of Jamie, and her plan of attack.

Though it pained her to do it, she knew Ian was right, and that she would have to apologize.

Shep would have said fuck her had she taken her problem to him.

If she doesn’t like you, just fuck her .

She could even hear the words in his rough, dismissive voice, and the thought made her smile, though it was totally unhelpful.

She and Jamie were going to be roommates at least until spring semester ended.

She didn’t want to wage a cold war with her for months.

And, hell: who was she to judge Raven when she herself could count her friends on one hand? And two of them were a surly biker addicted to bench presses and a drug dealer turned club backer.

Evening was coming down fast when she arrived at the door of her dorm, dark pressing in close at the hallway windows. She checked for and didn’t see a stripe of light along the bottom of the door, which meant Jamie was still out, likely logging more time in the ceramics room.

It was a relief…and not. She wanted to go ahead and hash things out while she was still bolstered by her visit with Ian.

She let herself in, hung up her bag and her jacket in the blue semidarkness coming through the snow-heaped window.

Kicked off her boots and crossed to switch on the wall-mounted lamp above her headboard.

She turned, sat down on the side of her mattress, and saw Jamie sitting across the room on her bed.

“Ah! Holy shit, you scared the hell out of me!”

Jamie didn’t react the way someone who’d accidently spooked her roommate should have. She didn’t react at all, in fact.

While she waited for her heartrate to slow, Cass did a quick inventory, and then frowned.

Jamie sat all the way back on the bed, pressed against the wall, rather than on the edge like Cass.

She had her legs drawn up tight to her body, and her arms wrapped around them.

Her face was buried in her knees, hair fanned out across her shoulders.

It looked wet, like she’d just showered and was letting it air dry.

Cass noted her cozy socks, her sweats, her favorite threadbare old hoodie, the one with Deku on the front.

It was a hoodie that always made an appearance if Jamie had the sniffles or terrible monthly cramps.

Cass thought of it as her something’s-wrong hoodie.

“Hey,” Cass said. “You okay?”

Jamie didn’t react at first, and Cass wanted to shout at her. Get over yourself! Are you never going to speak to me ever again? Over Sig? Really?? But then, finally, Jamie lifted her head. Her face was wet and splotchy, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed. She’d been crying. She was still crying.

Oh no. Was she that upset about their rift? About Sig?

“Jamie,” Cass started.

And Jamie croaked out, “I’m sorry.”

Cass felt her brows shoot up. “You’re sorry?” Wow. She’d come in here ready to offer up her own apology, but it turned out waiting had done the trick.

“Yeah.” Jamie sniffed, and brushed her hair back, and that was when Cass saw a mark on her lower lip. A little red dot, like a bee sting.

Like a bite .

“You were right about Sig.”

Cass’s heartrate accelerated again for an entirely different reason. “I was?”

Jamie nodded, and swiped beneath her eyes as more tears gathered on her lashes. “He’s a piece of shit,” she said with feeling, voice quavering, hand trembling as she wiped her face again.

Dread gathered in the pit of Cass’s stomach, souring the latte she’d chugged. “Jamie, what happened?”

Jamie sniffed hard, and tipped her head back against the wall. When she did, the lamplight slid over fresh red marks on the sides of her neck. “I went to that coffeehouse they like, the one just off campus.”

A pretentious, hipster non-chain place that was quite delightful, with its macrame plant hangers, its plush chairs, and the cats who zigged and zagged along the walls on a series of shelves and ramps.

Cass had only been once, and loved it, but wouldn’t darken its door again so long as Sig and his goons frequented it.

She nodded to show her understanding, and Jamie continued, “I was hoping to run into Sig. I wanted—shit, I wanted to tell him you were being stupid, and that I told you so, and that I didn’t feel the same way you did.

That if I got invited to one of his parties, I wouldn’t fake sick and leave early. ”

The dread got heavier. “Oh no. What did you do?”

“I—I’m sorry, Cass, I didn’t believe you, and I should have!

” She took a shuddering breath and wiped her nose.

“And he was so cool about it. He was nice. He asked me to join them, and we had coffee, and when he got ready to leave, he asked if I wanted to go with him, and I said yes, and we went back to his house, and we—we—”

“Jamie,” Cass said, leaning forward, hands clenched in her coverlet. “Did you sleep with him?”

She shook her head hard, hair flaring out.

“We started to, but I got nervous, and I told him no, that I changed my mind, that I wanted to wait. But he…he…” Her lip quivered as she sucked in another quivering breath, and when she made eye contact with Cass, her gaze was miserable.

“He forced me. He held me down, and he bit my lip, and he made me.”

The churning dread heated, and bled into anger. The kind of anger she thought might be genetic; the kind that had spurred her brothers to lethal action over the years. “He raped you.”

“Yes,” Jamie whispered, and buried her face back into her knees. “He did.”