THE WOLF

Nicholas

Day One

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Subject: Our flight

Have you somehow forgotten how to find your way back from the restroom? Our flight is boarding in an hour.

Also, did you remember to bring the Wallace files?

—Nicholas

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Subject: Re: Our flight

I’m in the bookstore and will come back to the gate when I feel like it. I know it’s been awhile since you’ve flown with us “regular people,” but you don’t have to wait at the gate for an hour if you don’t want to. (I don’t want to.)

How could I forget them? You sent me TWENTY emails about them this week.

—Emily

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I groaned and placed my phone into my pocket.

The second Emily signed that contract, something shifted between us and the sexual tension was higher than ever. We couldn’t get through a single conversation without arguing, and we’d resorted to sending each other emails about the simplest things.

“Why are we not taking my private jet for this trip, Brenton?” I looked up at him. “We could have landed in Blue Harbor by now.”

“It’s because Mr. Watson isn’t a fan of exorbitant displays of wealth, and you want to come off like a man who hasn’t forgotten where he came from.” He set down his magazine. “You’ll survive the first-class cabin, I promise. Where’s Mrs. Wolf?”

“Don’t call her that.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s in the bookstore.”

“Well, I hope you two were all smiles on the way here.” He lowered his voice. “I’m pretty sure a few lifestyle editors from Page Six caught wind of this trip, and they’re tailing you. That now means we have Town & Country, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Market Watch who will be in and out of Blue Harbor while you two are there. So, that means you and Emily are good, right?”

I didn’t answer him. “Good” was a far cry from the word I would use to describe us right now.

When I picked her up this morning—after she’d finally come down to my car, she put a goddamn kitten onto my backseat. Something I never fucking agreed to, and when I told her that she needed to leave it in New York, she refused to come unless I changed my mind.

On the way to the airport, she became visibly upset when I told her she was still responsible for completing her work while we were “engaged.” She blatantly ignored me when I offered to stop and buy her breakfast. And when we arrived at the departures level, she damn near screamed when she saw me tossing her bag onto the security belt.

I honestly forgot her damn cat was in that bag ...

“Good morning, Brenton.” She sat down in the chair across from us, holding the green-eyed kitten in her lap. “How’s your morning?”

“It’s pretty good thus far. I’m just a little behind on my—” He stopped and looked at us. “Okay, no. No, no, no.” He shook his head and faced me. “What did you do to her?”

“I haven’t done anything to her.” Yet.

“Look, Nicholas. In addition to the Page Six people, there are two feature editors from The New York Times on this flight.” He lowered his voice. “On. This. Flight. Now, granted, they’ll be sitting several rows behind the two of you, but the last thing we need is for them to see the two of you arguing on your first day. I don’t want that clouding their story. Please just apologize for whatever you said to Emily. Hell, try to use an endearment with it, so you can get used to saying it whenever you’re around other people.”

I cleared my throat and looked at Emily. “I apologize for whatever you think I did to upset you, sweetheart.”

“You almost killed my cat.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Apology not accepted, sweetheart.”

The damn cat hissed, as if it understood what we were talking about.

“Emily ...” Brenton let out a breath. “He’s apologized in his own terrible way, so let’s ignore him for the next few seconds. There are editors from The New York Times on this flight, and I know you, of all people, know what that means. Can you pretend that you’re letting this go and just be the bigger person?”

“Seeing as though I am always the bigger person, that’s fine.”

“Great.” He stood to his feet. “I’m going to grab a cinnamon bun from the coffee shop. Can I trust you two not to kill each other while I’m gone?”

We didn’t answer.

“Okay, well ...” He sighed. “Just don’t talk to each other at all until I get back.”

“No problem,” we said in unison.

He stepped away, and I glared at Emily as she glared right back at me. Then I slowly realized that these thirty days were going to be a lot harder than I’d originally thought.