Page 41 of Claimed By the Boss

I stop at the edge of her desk. “Are you heading out, Miss Taylor?”

She nods. “My aunt asked me to have dinner with her tonight. If I don’t leave soon, I’ll be very late.”

“I remember.” I lower my voice. “You told me this morning. At a very inconvenient hour.”

She presses her lips together as if she’s trying not to laugh. Her eyes flick to the side. No one’s watching, but she still keeps her voice low.

“I didn’t hear you complaining.”

“I was trying to conserve oxygen.”

“You’re dramatic.”

I raise a brow. “You’re late.”

“Not yet.”

I reach out and brush a stray curl from her forehead. Just enough contact to make her inhale slightly. Enough to remind her what my hands feel like when we’re not being watched.

“Enjoy your evening,” I say.

She looks up at me. “You too.”

Then she walks off without another word. She doesn’t glance over her shoulder. She doesn’t need to. She already knows I’m watching her, and I will be until the elevator doors close.

Once she’s gone, I turn and head back upstairs.

I don’t like the quiet that waits for me in my office. I pour myself a drink to break it. I don’t sit back down. I just stand there, looking out at the skyline, and try not to think too hard about what’s happening to me.

I don’t get attached. That’s always been the rule.

Women are soft distractions. They’re good for an evening, sometimes even a week. I’ve had the best this city’s had to offer. Models and dancers and Rhodes Scholars. None of them stuck.

But Lyra has somehow snuck her way under my skin, and I get the impression that she has no intention of leaving any time soon. Not that I would want her to. I’ve been just as reluctant to leave her side as she’s been to go.

When I do finally leave the office, the night is already an inky black. There’s a biting chill that feels early for October. I try not to roll my eyes as I remember Lyra telling me to grab a coat this morning. I argued that it wasn’t cold enough yet. I’ll never hear the end of it now.

The town car waits where it always does, parked at the curb, black and polished, windows tinted well past the legal limit. Cops in this city know better than to pull me over. My driver, Anton, holds the door for me without speaking. He knows I don’t like chatter at the end of the day.

I slide into the backseat and nod once. He shuts the door and rounds the front. We pull away from the curb quickly, blending into the hectic New York traffic.

The city blurs past the windows, neon and shadow. I check the screen on my phone, but there are no new messages from Lyra. She’s probably still at dinner. I hope she’s laughing over a shared plate of pasta and telling her aunt some cleaned-up version of our relationship. Or whatever it is we’re doing.

Part of me wants to text her, to hear from her, but I don’t. I remind myself that we’re not established as anything, and it’s good for her to have her space. Instead, I lean back against the seat and close my eyes for a few seconds.

That’s all it takes for everything to go to shit. Gunfire rips through the silence, far too close to the car. And when I feel the car jerk sideways and hear Anton swear under his breath, I know it’s worse than I thought.

To my left and right are two black SUVs, both with masked shooters taking aim at my car. And as if that weren’t bad enough, another SUV pulls out in front of us, blocking us in. I sit up straighter.

Then the first round hits the side of the car. Hard.

The sound is deafening, a clatter of metal on metal, bullets ricocheting off the reinforced panels like hail against glass. Thewindows hold, but only just. I hear thepopof something in the undercarriage and know we’ve lost the front tire.

I reach under the seat and retrieve the gun I keep in the concealed holster there. Anton’s already pulled his own from the side panel.

“We can’t outrun them,” he says.

“No.”