Wolf Bite (Wolf Cove #2) (12 page)

And a sudden onslaught of guilt, something I don’t
understand. Henry doesn’t care, so why would I feel guilty?

Maybe it has nothing to do with Henry. Maybe it has
everything to do with becoming this person I never thought I’d be, who has
casual sex, who listens and watches others having sex.

Who am I becoming?

I pull Michael’s t-shirt over me and tell myself that this
isn’t a big deal. That Michael is a good guy who Mama would probably approve of,
and if I was going to have sex with anyone tonight that wasn’t Henry, it should
be Michael.

It’s
really
not a big deal.

The toilet flushes and a moment later the door opens again, giving
me a great view of Michael’s taut stomach.

“Leave the light on,” James calls out. I hear his bare feet
hit the wood floor.

“Dude! Come on!”

“What?”

A second later I see get my first look at James. Or, James
from the waist down and buck naked, his semi-flaccid dick bobbing with his
step. I close my eyes. I’ve seen three dicks tonight. Three!

James’s voice drops to a soft whisper, but I can still hear him
when he asks, “Who?”

“Good night.”

“Fuck. Come on!”

“Night, Lorraine! Always a pleasure.”

I hear a muffled “Night,” and my mouth drops open. Lorraine?
My roommate, Lorraine?

Michael pulls the curtain closed behind him and crawls into
bed with me, resuming our precoital spooning position with a kiss along the
back of my neck. He clearly wants me to stay the night. And, truth be told, I
don’t want to be alone tonight.

“Did that make you feel better?”

I smile, and nod.

And close my eyes as the heavy weight settles on my chest
once again.

~ ~ ~

I wake, my body draped over Michael’s, my head resting against
his chest.

“...the fucking guy was so damn drunk, he pissed all over
himself. And me!” A guy complains. “He couldn’t even remember his name. We had
to carry him to his room. Fucking guy reeked of piss. So, yeah. Shitty night. I
hate working foot security at these events.”

“Don’t blame you,” another guy mumbles, and I instantly recognize
the Australian accent. That’s Andy, the guy assigned to be liaison to Roshana.

Damn her. Between Tillie cleaning her room and now Andy,
Michael’s roommate and her liaison, I feel like I’m always two degrees of
separation between knowing what she’s doing with Henry.

The security guy chuckles. “What the hell happened to you,
anyway? She lock you up all weekend?”

“Dude. I don’t even know where to begin with her and her
multiple personalities.”

“Yeah. Jerry said she’s prime-grade bitch. She returned a
hard-boiled egg three times, yesterday? Something like that, anyway.”

Andy groans. “I think I’ve slept all of five hours since
Friday. She made me sit in that little room and listen to her fuck all night on
Friday.”

“Who?”

Andy snorts. “Who do you
think
?”

“Of course. Chick like that goes straight for the top dog.”

The top dog would be Henry Wolf.

I flinch, the brutal reality opening the emotional gash wide
again. I feel sick. But not just sick. Anger is stirring deep within me. He had
the nerve to deny it! To make me feel like not believing him would be
my
fault!

“At least you could tug one off in the privacy of your own
little room, unlike this fucking place.”

Andy chuckles. “Yeah, there’s that. Still, she should have
let me go home.”

A zipper unfastens somewhere in the cabin. “Maybe she was
hoping you’d go a round with them. She looks like the type that’d take two
dicks at once.”

“Two of something, anyway. Last night she came home with
this smokin’ blonde and the boss, and—hey...” Andy’s voice drops. “Did Aspen
finally hook up with someone?”

Aspen. It takes me a minute to clue in that he’s talking
about Michael, who works at the Aspen Wolf during the winter.

Andy must have seen my clothes on the hanger.

The curtain shifts at the foot of the bed and Andy’s
handsome face peers into our space. Thank God the covers are pulled over me to
cover my naked bottom half.

“Fuck off,” a groggy Michael calls out. I didn’t even
realize he was awake.

Andy ignores him, grinning at me. “Oh. Hey.”

I feel my cheeks flush. “Hi.” Great. Now Andy knows I slept
over. How long before this gets around?

Andy climbs the ladder. The frame creaks as he stretches out
in his bed. “I’ll be sleeping ’til Tuesday if anyone needs me.”

“Yeah. Hittin’ the showers. All this fucking piss,” the
other guy mutters. The door opens and shuts, and all is silent in the cabin
once again.

“Hey.” Michael’s fingers slide under my chin, lifting my
face to his. He lays a light kiss on my lips, and his arm tightens around my
body. “Are you feeling better, today?”

I offer him a weak smile.

No, I’m not. This all feels wrong. Being here, in Michael’s
bed. In his arms. I should never have slept with him last night. I used him.
Like, really and truly used him, and he doesn’t deserve that. He’s a nice guy,
and I think he may like me.

His fingers graze over my cheek, pushing strands away. “What
are you thinking about?”

Henry.

Going to Henry’s house at 1:00 p.m. Telling him... what? He
demanded an answer today on whether I’m staying or going. I don’t know yet. All
I know is that I can’t work for him anymore.

Why is he doing this to me? Isn’t it better for him if I’m
not there every day? Maybe he doesn’t want to outright fire me, though. Me
quitting to go back home would probably look better than him firing me and looking
for a new assistant.

But, heck, I’d think he’d want to appease me. I’m a risk to
him now, all emotional and hurt. He has that mess with Kiera to deal with. The
last thing he needs is me around, telling people that he screwed me, too.

A thought strikes me.

Maybe I need to remind him of that.

I wriggle free of Michael’s arms. “I’ve gotta get to work.”

Chapter Fourteen

My mind is lost beneath the stream of hot water as
I weigh my options.

Am I insane for even considering staying? I’m hurt, and
angry. Probably as hurt and angry as Kiera was when “they decided it best that
she resign.” That’s what Henry said. Did he give her an ultimatum, too?

Maybe that explains why she’d blackmail him, why she’d want
to hurt him back for the pain he caused her. Thinking back on it, the e-mails
noted her leaving Wolf Hotels three months earlier, and the severance offer
coming only a month or so ago. Plus, there’s the “incident” that led to her
having Henry’s DNA on her panties three or four weeks ago. That can only mean
one thing—that Henry slept with her as recently as three to four weeks ago. Why
did he sleep with her then?

Was it because something was still going on between them? Or
because he was trying to convince her to sign the gag order? Did he tell her
all kinds of things that night? That she was special, and they were different,
and he just had to be careful because of his father. That they needed to wait
until Henry had control of the company?

Who knows anymore.

All I know is that I don’t think I can be that vindictive as
to try and blackmail Henry to get what I want. And honestly, I don’t want
anyone
knowing what went on behind closed doors while I was supposed to be working.
While some women around here would revel in having everyone know they were
sleeping with him, I’m not one of them.

“We are
so, so, so
sorry, Abbi.”

I jump at the sound of Katie’s voice directly behind me.
She’s wrapped in a towel and standing in my shower stall. Again.

At least this time she’s not getting a full-frontal view.

“We were
so
drunk and caught up in the moment, and Rachel
thinks Ronan’s hot. Tillie and Lorraine were partying in the lodge, and Autumn
texted to say she was on shift until midnight.” She’s rambling, her pretty face
scrunched up with a pained expression. “Honestly, we should have at least
locked the door or something, but we really weren’t thinking. Those parties go
until late and we figured Wolf would make you stay.” She finishes the rant
with, “I’m sorry. Please don’t hate us.”

I stick my face under the hot stream of water again, acutely
aware that she could be staring at my ass right now. Does that even bother me
anymore? Being naked in front of Henry and Michael has definitely shed some of
my shyness. “It’s okay.”

“Seriously? You’re not mad at us?”

Oddly enough, I’m not mad. In fact, a part of me envies them
for their freedom. It doesn’t seem like they’re weighed down by the kind of guilt
or confusion that I woke up feeling this morning.

“No. Not at all. Just... maybe next time give me a heads-up,
if you can?” Even if I were mad, I wouldn’t say a word. The last thing I want is
for there to be tension in a cabin of six women. That would make for a
long
summer.

“Definitely.” She hesitates, dropping her voice to a
whisper. “And it’s okay, you know.”

“What’s okay?” I glance over my shoulder at her again, to
see her biting her plump bottom lip.

“I mean, if you want to watch. Or more. It’s okay.”

“I... don’t,” I stutter, feeling heat crawl up my face. Her
perfectly manicured brow arches, as if she’s calling my bluff. She knows I was
hiding in my little corner, spying on her and Rachel. “I like guys.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t like to watch.” She shrugs
playfully. “You’re curious. And we’re hot. And Ronan is
really
hot. It’s
normal.”

Is it?

I heave a sigh of frustration. Nothing feels normal about
Alaska.

“Just thought you should know that we’d be okay with it.”
She winks and ducks out of my stall, humming softly.

~ ~ ~

It’s two minutes to one when I approach the
service entrance of Penthouse Cabin One, this odd mixture of guilt, and hurt,
and anger, and dread weighing down each step.

I still have no idea what my answer is going to be—go back
to Greenbank? Or face Henry, day in day out. Feel
this
every day as I
approach this door. Will it get better?

I’m ten feet away from swiping my key card when the main
door flies open. Scott barrels out, the back of his hand testing his mouth
where his lip has been split and blood trickles down his chin. More blood leaks
from his nose, and his left eye is red and puffy, the beginnings of a bruise
already evident.

I can’t keep my mouth from dropping at the shocking sight. Someone
has punched the hell out of him.

Did Henry and his brother just get into a fistfight?

Scott slows when he sees me, a glower filling his eyes. “You
may want to come back in an hour or so,” he mutters, passing by me and heading
down the path toward the main lodge.

I frown after him. Why?

Oh my God.
Did he hurt Henry?

Panic hits me as I rush through the entrance, visions of him
lying in a pool of blood by the dining table making my heart pound in my chest.
The interior door is propped open this time, so I don’t hesitate to run into
the cabin, holding my breath for fear of what I might find.

I quickly zero in on Henry. His back is to me and he’s
standing in front of his desk, his focus beyond the window

Relief overwhelms me. He appears fine.

“Fuck!” He explodes suddenly, picking up a glass and
whipping it clear across the room. It hits the fireplace and shatters.
Countless pieces of glass scatter in every which direction.

A small shriek escapes me, pulling his head slightly to the
left, toward me. But he doesn’t turn to acknowledge my presence with a glance.

What the hell happened in here?

One of the side table lamps lays in pieces, scattered over the
hardwood. The crystal decanter has been knocked over too. It’s not broken, but
amber liquid has spilled everywhere, and the pungent sweet smell of liquor
hangs in the air.

Finally I gather enough nerve. “Henry?”

He looks down to his right hand, flexing it open and closed.
“Get me some ice.” After a pause, he adds in an unsettlingly calm voice, “Please.”

I grab the ice bucket and fill it with ice from the freezer
compartment, then snatch a towel from the powder room, and bring it over to
him.

The softest “thanks” slips from his lips. He still hasn’t
met my eyes, his calm and somber mask unexpected given he just delivered a
pummeling to his brother and threw a glass in anger.

Uncomfortable silence hangs.

Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “I just saw Scott.”

He sticks his hand into the ice bucket, a slight wince
curling his lip. “It’s been a while since I’ve hit anyone.”

At least three times, from the looks of it. “Do you want to
talk about it?”

His jaw tenses and I figure he’s not going to answer. “The
last time I saw Kiera, we left things on good terms. I told her she could come
back to Wolf and work elsewhere, but she thought it best to start fresh
somewhere else. So I was... surprised that she’d be so vindictive.” He finally
turns to settle a cold blue gaze on me. “Scott’s the one who convinced her to
go after me with the false accusations.”

My mouth drops open. “Are you serious?” His own brother,
trying to get him thrown in jail? “How do you know?”

“When you told me about what he said to you in the elevator,
I started to wonder how low he’d go to have me cut out. So I had the PI that my
lawyer hired to deal with Kiera look into his corporate phone records and the
jet travel logs. Turns out he was in New York about a month ago without any of
us knowing. He went to meet her, and start filling her head with bullshit. A
lot of the same shit he fed to you, about how I had used her all along, how I
was fucking around with other women.

“It was right after that Kiera asked me out for a drink and
seduced me in my car. It was a moment of weakness on my part, because we had
ended it months before. That’s how she ended up with my DNA on her panties. The
ones she decided to hold on to.”

That answers my question about why they’d slept together so
recently. “Are you sure?”

“She’s admitted to it all. She told us everything. About how,
when Scott visited her that first time, he told her I was looking for another attractive
assistant to use in Alaska. She knew enough about Scott to not accept what he
was trying to reel her into. Still, she was angry and hurt.

“It wasn’t hard for him to call up Wolf Cove and find out
that I’d brought you in as my assistant. That’s when he contacted Kiera again,
with your picture and some story about staff speculating that we were basically
living together in the cabin. It made her crazy, and upset, and he coupled that
with the choice of claiming sexual assault or having her husband find out about
the affair. He told her that I’d pay the money in a heartbeat just to shut her
up, and that all she needed to do was keep the lie about the assault going
until they pressed charges. He knew that was all it would take to force my
father’s hand. She could recant after that and wouldn’t get into any trouble
because the police won’t ever charge a potential rape victim, for fear of
deterring others in future.”

My mind is swirling with all this new information, with the
extent that Henry’s own brother would go to take over the business. It’s
impossible to comprehend, but I don’t come from this world. Is
this
what
it’s like to be a part of the Wolf family, to be surrounded by so much greed
and wealth that you’ll do anything, hurt anyone? Maybe this is why their mother
ran off!

As angry and upset as I am with Henry, I’m also relieved for
him. “So, she’s dropped the charges?”

He pulls his hand out of the bucket and takes a look at his
knuckles. They’re red but they don’t look too bad. “Yes. And taking the
severance package we offered her. Her husband now knows that there was no
sexual assault, so I’m not sure where that will leave things with them. But
that’s not my problem. If she had just come to me in the first place, I would
have informed my father what Scott was up to and we could have avoided all of
this.”

“So, what happens now?”

“Now, my father gives me controlling power of Wolf Hotels.
He’s not waiting until the end of June. He’s having the paperwork drawn up
today.”

“All because of Scott?”

“To spite Scott, or because he knows I’m the right choice....”
Henry shrugs. “I don’t really care. I get what I want and it’s what’s best for
the company.”

“Well... that’s good. I’m happy that it all worked out for
you.” It doesn’t change what happened between us but I do mean it.

“Are you?” He levels me with steely blue eyes, and I
instinctively tense. There’s something behind that gaze, as if he’s restraining
himself. And I remember that he smashed a glass. He’s still
very
angry
about something.

“Of course. I wouldn’t want you to be accused of something
you didn’t do.”

His lips twitch. “You mean, like being accused of fucking
the key media contact who’s doing a write up of my hotel?”

Is he seriously
still
going to deny it? I swallow my
anger, but it’s impossible. “I know what I saw.” The looks, the touches....

Henry folds his arms over his chest, ignoring his sore fist.
“And what exactly did you see? Because I know what
I
saw on the security
footage, when I reviewed it to see what the fuck went on that made you think I
was with her—me, leaving the main lodge late Friday and heading back to my
cabin, fighting the urge to demand that my assistant come here so I can bury
myself in her.”

My heart skips a beat but I don’t get a chance to even
process that because Henry’s still talking.

“My brother, appearing at the bar the moment I’m gone to
lubricate Roshana with enough martinis that she willingly brought him back to
her suite.”

My stomach drops. “Scott?”

“My idiot brother knew how important Roshana is to Wolf
Cove, so he decided it’d be a brilliant idea to fuck her on Friday night.”

Wait. What?
Scott was with Roshana Friday? Not Henry?
All those condoms from Friday night weren’t on account of Henry? I
frantically wrack my brain with everything I know and think I know. Scott’s the
one who told me that Henry and Roshana were together Friday night, but he’s
also convinced there’s something going on between us. So Scott lied. But of
course he lied. He figured he’d get a reaction out of the poor dumb assistant
who’s head over heels for her boss. To get me to confess to our inappropriate
relationship. And he’s been around the hotel industry all his life; I’m sure he
knows what staff is like. He probably made sure to leave her place littered
with condoms just to spark gossip through the housekeeping staff.

My heart begins racing.

If that’s true....

Henry’s voice has turned icy. “What’s wrong, Abbi? You look
guilty
. Did you do something that you’re perhaps ashamed of?”

I feel the blood leave my face. “No,” I whisper.

“Really?” I swear I hear Henry’s teeth crack from his jaw
clenching so hard. “How was Michael this morning?”

Oh my God.

Henry knows.

How the
hell
does he know?

Tears sting my eyes, because I
do
feel guilty. I
am
ashamed.

But... no, it doesn’t matter, I remind myself, as I wipe the
teardrops from my cheek. “I saw you last night, leaving the lobby with Roshana
and that blonde in the red dress.”

“You saw me walking her back to her cabin, which is directly
beside
my
cabin, and so you just figured you should go and fuck someone
else.”

“I know what I saw.”

Anger radiates from him. “Well, I hope it was worth it
because Michael is on the ferry as we speak.”

“What!” Did I hear him correctly? “You
fired
him? You
can’t do that!”