Where Winter Finds You

by J. R. Ward

  “Liza and I were worried,” he mumbled. “And when I couldn’t reach you, I panicked.”

  Wow, so Trez and Xhex really did take care of everything. Then again, she hadn’t seen anything on the news, either. “I’m fine. But thanks for worrying about me.”

  iAm, who was seated behind his messy desk, cleared his throat. “Okay, guys. How about everyone but Therese head back to prep.”

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” Emile said.

  “Thanks—and hey, listen, I lost my phone last night. That’s why I didn’t answer when you called. I wasn’t avoiding you or anything, and the last thing I want is to create a problem.”

  “As long as you’re okay.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s all I care about.”

  After everybody left, Therese exhaled in frustration and turned back to her boss. “Am I in trouble or something?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “But what happened last night?”

  She shrugged. “It was a shooting between humans. Nothing to do with us.”

  “At my brother’s club?”

  “Yes. Emile and I went there to—” She stopped herself. “That’s not important. Anyway, I gather everything was… taken care of… on the human side of things. Just as they said it would be.”

  Now iAm was rubbing his head like it hurt. Then he muttered something under his breath and looked across that desk. When he didn’t say anything, she felt as though he were trying to speak with his eyes. There was no chance to ask questions, however. The outside door opened behind Therese and—

  As a blast of arctic winter air shot into the corridor, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. And forget about the flush that went through her body.

  Trez was bigger, better, sexier, smarter, fitter, handsomer—every -er you could tack on to every adjective that had ever been used to describe a male of worth. Even though she had seen him a mere eighteen hours ago, the absence had gone further than making her heart grow fonder. It had turned him into a living, breathing fantasy.

  And on his side? He smiled back at her. And smiled. And smiled.

  Okay, she really needed to get another burner phone. So they could talk to each other during the day. She had wondered whether he had tried to call her—but then remembered he had been with her when she’d discovered her cell was gone—

  “Allow me to break into this moment,” iAm said sharply.

  She and Trez snapped to attention as if a drill sergeant had threatened them with dead lifts for insubordination.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what had gone down at the club?” iAm demanded. Except then he put up a hand. “Wait, don’t answer that. I’m just glad she’s okay.”

  “I wasn’t in any real danger,” Therese said.

  Hell, there had at least been three feet between the muzzle of that gun and her face. Maybe four. No problem.

  iAm sat forward and pulled a folder across the desk. Opening it, his finger went down the form she had filled out when she had first been hired.

  “You never gave us your emergency contact information.” He tapped one of the vacancies she had left. “I’ve got to know who to get in touch with if something happens to you here at work. If you’re injured in an accident. If you don’t come in at all.”

  Therese opened her mouth. Closed it.

  “Me,” Trez said. “Call me.”

  She glanced in his direction. She had been so struck by his presence, she hadn’t even noticed what he was wearing. But damn… the male turned a white silk shirt and a set of fine black slacks into a masterpiece. Did he never wear a coat, though?

  As she worried about him catching a cold that turned into pneumonia that put him on life support, Therese pulled back from the tailspin a little. It was impossible not to notice how far she had evolved in such a short time. Just twenty-four hours before, she had been all now-is-not-a-good-time-for-a-relationship and do-things-on-my-own. Now? She was totally about this male, that rare sexual connection they shared rocketing her forward on a timeline of intimacy so fast she probably should be wearing a neck brace from the whiplash.

  But she couldn’t argue with how she felt.

  Nor did she want to.

  She had been rootless, and suddenly was no longer. And the change felt too good to argue with.

  “Yes,” she murmured as she stared at her boss’s brother. “If you could get in touch with Trez, that would be great.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  You want to talk about fried-egg pissed? Trez thought.

  Behind that desk of his, iAm was so angry, you could have cracked a yolk on his forehead, and gone scrambled with no problem at all.

  Trez looked over at Selena—no, he told himself, he had to remember to refer to her as Therese, at least in public. “Would you excuse us for a second?”

  “Yes, sure,” she said. “Of course.”

  Clearly, she had picked up on the vibe. Then again, you had to have a completely different definition of a-okay, hunky-dory to miss what was doing with iAm.

  “I’ll just go get my tables ready,” she murmured before hightailing it past Trez.

  “I’ll come find you before I go to work,” he said.

  As she glanced over her shoulder, her smile was like sunlight, and given the long winter he had been in—and he was not thinking in terms of the calendar—he soaked the warm up like he’d been frostbitten all over his body.

  After she disappeared around the corner, he shut the door to his brother’s office and leaned back against it. “So what’s the problem.”

  iAm closed the folder without adding anything to the form he’d stuck his forefinger to like a dart. “What are you doing. Seriously.”

  “Well, at the moment, I’m holding this door up. A minute ago, I was in my car. And later, I’ll be at my club.” He cracked a half smile. “You want me to write this down for you? Draw a diagram—”

  “What are you doing with that female,” iAm snapped. “And quit it with the games.”

  Trez crossed his arms over his chest and told his temper to take a load off. There was no reason to fight. “Ah. So you need an anatomy lesson—”

  “This is fucking serious!” iAm banged a fist on the desk, causing an adding machine to jump like the thing had been startled. “You are not in any condition to be stringing her along—”

  “Excuse me?” Trez felt the tips of his fangs tingle. “Now you’re a shrink?”

  “She is not Selena!” iAm burst to his feet, his chef’s jacket, which he had yet to button up, flapping open. “And you know she is not, and you’re just using her—”

  Dropping the happy-chappy act, Trez bared his fangs. “You do not know what I’m doing with her—”

  “You’re the one who brought up anatomy. Or are you now going to try to convince me you’re only holding hands together?”

  Trez stepped forward and planted his palms on the desk surface. Leaning forward, he stared directly into his brother’s eyes. “It’s none of your business.”

  “She’s my employee. You’re essentially an owner here. It’s a violation of our HR—”

  Throwing his head back, Trez laughed. “You’re coming at this from a human resources angle? Really?”

  “Well, I’ve tried the most obvious one, that she isn’t your dead female, and I’ve gotten nowhere. The human laws protecting employees from being sexually harassed by their bosses are all I have left.”

  As Trez inhaled sharply, he had a thought that he was very glad this blowup hadn’t happened any sooner than this very moment. Without everything Xhex had told him? Without the hope and optimism he now had in his heart? He might well have done something he really regretted.

  Like pick up this desk and throw it at his brother.

  “Do you just want me to be unhappy?” he said roughly.

  “What?” iAm shook his head like he hadn’t heard right. “Are you even kidding me?”

  “Do you want me to suffer.” Trez straightened. “Would you rather that than my being hap
py? Relieved? Living again? Does it make you feel better about your own life if mine is in the shitter?”

  iAm’s eyes narrowed. “I cannot believe that shit just came out of your mouth.”

  “Fine, then what’s the other explanation for this bullshit you’re talking? Because that’s the only conclusion that makes any sense to me.”

  iAm’s finger pointed through the tense air, punctuating syllables spoken with anger. “You have used and discarded hundreds upon hundreds of women and females over the course of your life. I know this because I’ve been on the sidelines. Watching. I’ve seen them pine after you, show up on our doorstep, wander in and out of our clubs, looking for you—and that’s even after you scrub their memories, if you remember to do so. And what I see now—”

  “That’s all changed—”

  “—is you doing the same thing to a female who has no one around to support her after you move on.”

  “—now that my shellan is back.”

  iAm recoiled. Then hung his head sadly. “So you do think that.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Trez wanted to punch the wall as he struggled to keep his truth inside. What he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs was that he knew his shellan was back.

  Cursing under his breath, he muttered, “Whatever. We don’t need to talk like this.”

  “You actually think it’s her.”

  Trez backed up and leaned against the door again. Recrossing his arms, he shrugged. “Hey, you must be relieved that I’m not using her. At least you can take that off your list of sins.”

  iAm shook his head. “She’s not Selena.”

  “Talk to Xhex.” Trez jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “Go talk to my head of security. She knows the truth. She told me the truth. She’s my best friend and she would never lie to me.”

  iAm closed his eyes and rubbed them as he sat back down. When he spoke again, his voice was exhausted. “She’s a symphath.”

  “Do not go there,” Trez said in a nasty rush. “Don’t you fucking shit on her for what she is. And besides, she’s only ever stood by me. She’s only ever been good to me. She is not evil, and you know this. You know her.”

  “I agree.” iAm looked up. “She’s always had your back. So it doesn’t dawn on you that she gave you the information you wanted to hear just to make you feel better? I don’t know what exactly she told you, but she knows how desperate you’ve been. How close the edge. How close to… certain things. You don’t think maybe she manipulated you for all the right reasons?”

  Trez stood up off the door and grabbed the knob. “I’m going to go. Before this gets even uglier.”

  “Just because a lie feels good doesn’t mean it’s true, and just because Xhex has good intentions doesn’t mean lying to you is right. And I will tell you this right now—Therese is the one who’s going to get hurt. The second it dawns on you that she’s not actually Selena? You’re going to lose that connection with her in a heartbeat. You’re in love with someone who is not here, and self-medicating that horrible reality with a sexual stand-in is unconscionable, no matter how much it eases your pain.”

  Annnnnnd this is why I needed to keep the reincarnation a secret, Trez thought.

  “You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.” He opened the way out. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Like… maybe in a decade.

  Or a thousand years, he thought as he walked off.

  * * *

  Back at the water station. Liza and Emile. Therese getting a pitcher to fill up so she could go out to her first table of the night. And what do you know, Liza was pissed off, Emile was apologetic, and Therese was worried about getting enough tips together to move out of that rooming house. It was just as it had been the night before.

  Yet everything was completely different.

  Ever since she had been with Trez in that hidden passageway, the world had reoriented itself, all the metaphorical furniture shifting three inches one way, two inches another, the new spaces between the sofas and chairs requiring a fresh assessment of a familiar room.

  And what do you know, she liked the new arrangement better. Much, much better—

  As long as Trez and his brother didn’t get into it too badly, she thought as she walked over to a four top of human women. He and his brother had been really tense as she’d left that office. Hopefully they cleared the air… instead of blew the back half of the restaurant up.

  “Hi,” she said to the women, “my name is Therese, I’ll be your server. Can I start you off with a glass of wine or some cocktails?”

  As she poured water, made small talk with her diners, and took drink orders from the quartet of old high school friends, she kept looking to the water station, and not because she was curious whether Liza and Emile had elevated their discussions and relationship to a higher level. The waiting was making her antsy, and she had a thought, in the back of her head, that she was way too emotionally invested if she couldn’t make it through five or ten minutes without seeing Trez.

  Try arguing with feelings, though.

  She was back at the water station, having delivered the drinks and given the ladies a chance to look over the menu, when she caught a scent that went through her entire body.

  “Hey,” Trez whispered into her ear. “You got a minute?”

  As she turned around and smiled up at him, she realized she’d been worried he’d leave without saying goodbye. Or saying anything. And again, that was a little much. If she kept up the desperate stuff, she was liable to drive him away.

  Nobody wanted to be someone else’s addiction.

  “Absolutely I have time.” Especially as she could sense the tension underneath his smiling expression. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now.”

  There was a moment of silence, and she knew that he was kissing her in his mind—and what do you know, in hers, she was kissing him back. And here was the thing. The fact that he seemed as lost to whatever was happening as she was made her feel more secure in the crazy attraction.

  Alone in it, she was lost. With him? They were on a heady journey.

  “Come over here for a quick second,” he said.

  They stepped back into the hallway that led to the customer bathrooms, and he took something out of his pocket.

  “Are these your keys?” he asked.

  As he held out his palm, she couldn’t believe it. “Yes! Oh, my God—how did you find them?”

  Taking the ring, she singled out the copper key to her parents’ house. Or rather her… whatever-they-were-to-her’s house.

  “I saw them on the floor. Before my janitorial service came in in the morning.”

  Putting the keys to her heart, she told herself they shouldn’t matter. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  “And I have something else.” From the back pocket of his slacks, he took out a wad. “This is returned to you as well.”

  As she gasped at the sight of ten hundred-dollar bills, she was momentarily excited. But then she narrowed her eyes. “Trez. I believe you found my keys on the floor. This? You most certainly did not.”

  He held up his forefinger. “Before you tell me to pound sand, I’ll have you know that the guy who ate here last night is a buddy of mine. When I told him what happened to the tip, he insisted on my bringing this to you. And”—when she went to interrupt, he kept talking—“as I didn’t know how much he left you, you can count the bills yourself and know they’re actually from him. You never told me how big the tip was. Only you and he know that.”

  Putting her hands on her hips, she shook her head. “I can’t accept—”

  “Count it.” He prompted her with the cash. “Go ahead. You’ll see that—”

  “No.” Smoothing her palms over her hair, latent anxiety caused her to fidget. “I believe you that it comes from the male. But losing the money was on me, not him. He does not need to make up for the fact that I lost it.”

  “You were in
a shoot-out,” Trez countered. “It was not your fault. And you didn’t lose it, the money was stolen.”

  “So it’s my bad luck. Not his.” She reached forward and curled his hand closed. “Take this back and thank him. I really appreciate the kindness. But I’m going to keep working here, and as soon as I can, I’ll fix my own problem with the housing situation.”

  “Does it change your mind if I tell you money is no object to the guy?”

  “No.” She smiled at him. “But I really appreciate you trying to take care of me. And seriously, please thank him for me.”

  Trez muttered some things under his breath. But he did put the cash away. And on the one hand, she was probably nuts for turning the Benjamins down. If the male was as rich as Trez was suggesting, they clearly weren’t going to be missed—whereas on her side? It would change things tremendously.

  She couldn’t do it, though.

  “I really am grateful,” she said. “And to you as well.”

  “Can I still see you at the end of tonight?”

  That flush she’d felt as he’d come through the back door to the restaurant returned. “Yes.”

  Trez stared at her for a long while. “I’ll come pick you up after your shift. I’ll just chill outside in my car until you come out.”

  “I can’t wait,” she whispered.

  As they stood together in complete stillness, she knew where he was in his mind. She was there, too. Yes, it was crazy. Yes, it was intense. Yes, it had started with the adrenaline rush last night after the drama at the club. But when a craving was this strong?

  You stopped asking about where it came from. And gave into it.

  “I can’t wait, either,” he echoed before he turned away.

  Thank God this isn’t one-sided, Therese thought as she watched him go.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN