Page 111 of Protection (Mobsters + Billionaires 2)
“Perfect. Let’s do this—I’m not going to give you a specific count of the actionable emails that cropped up during your vacation-slash-kidnapping. Just…wear a wrist guard before you go in, okay?”
“Duly noted,” I chuckle.
He smiles, letting out a relieved breath. “I’m glad to see you back in the office, Mads. Woulda sucked if they had killed you.”
“Oy. Get out of here, you sap,” I say, giving him a brief hug.
He grins and runs off, clearly feeling far more energetic than me these days.
Darren, chewing on an apple, walks by with a smirk. “I see you’re still committing human atrocities with that orange puffer jacket. You do know it's almost summer, right?”
Rolling my eyes, I respond. “Summer, otherwise known as office winter. You can peel this orange puffer jacket off my frozen corpse.”
“Tempting, but I don't want your job.”
“When did I hire a bunch of smart-asses?”
Darren fires back, “I thought that was a critical personality trait. Should I change the outgoing job requirements?”
See? Smart-ass.
“Nah, keep it.”
Anthony rejoins me and shakes Darren’s hand. “How’s it going?”
“Just giving Mads shit for this, frankly, abusively bright jacket.”
Anthony snorts. “Eh. What can you do?”
I glare up at him. I did very dirty things to him in this jacket last night, and he enjoyed every second of it. Anthony winks at me, and I almost giggle in front of Darren.
Letting Darren go off to harass the rest of the team, I turn to my boyfriend. “That didn’t take long. Do I want to know what new hell-toy she invented?”
He shakes his head. “Maybe, but not today. You good here for a bit? I need to have a conversation with the head of this building’s security. We have a few new protocols to put in place.”
Shaking my head, I tease, “Are you going to make him cry?”
“No. He might flinch though.”
Oh, there’s his dimple.
“I thought this one doesn't smile,” Ryder says, passing by again.
Anthony taps his chin. “I just remembered—I have a tricky problem that would probably take somebody like you ten minutes to figure out. It’s got five figures riding on it. Perhaps I'll tell Luca you're not interested.”
I can practically hear the sound of tires squealing as she stops and walks back into frame. “You were saying?”
“You cannot poach my best employee, Anthony,” I grouse.
“Hey!”protest at least ten people from the bullpen.
“No welcome back, boss? No inquiry into the state of my broken nose or the fact that I was, I dunno, kidnapped less than a week ago?”
Jerry from accounting points to Anthony. “Whatever. You had Rambo with you.”
“I haven’t even sat down yet.”
Good-natured laughter goes up.
