Wolf Bite (Wolf Cove #2) (4 page)

“Listen... I need you to do something for me.”

I frown, because I can tell this is serious by the stern
look on his face. “Of course, anything.”

“If we sort out this mess with Kiera, I’m in the clear. But,
if my dad then finds out that I turned around and got involved with you, it’s
over. I’m done.”

“He’ll give the company to Scott?” The monkey who weighs
gold, according to Henry.

Henry heaves a sigh. “He threatens it, but honestly I can’t
see him giving Wolf Hotels to Scott. If the police press charges, I’ll have to
step down immediately, leaving the CEO spot vacant. My guess is that he’ll appoint
someone from the outside and force us to offer an IPO. He’ll take Wolf Hotels
public. My brother and I’ll be able to cash in our 10 percent each and walk
away if we want, but the business will be protected. Our family will no longer
own it. My grandfather was completely against that.”

I shake my head.

“What? Why are you shaking your head at me?”

“Nothing. It’s just.... You know, you probably shouldn’t
have slept with me.”

He chuckles, bowing his head. “You know, you’re right. And
if I’d known what Kiera was going to pull, I probably would have tied my dick
in a knot to keep myself from using it. But I honestly thought she’d sign the severance
package, we’d go our separate ways, and what I did with my dick while in Alaska
wouldn’t be such a hot topic.”

“What you do with your dick is a very hot topic, for
everyone
around here.” I hear the comments every day as we pass both staff and guests.
Feel the eyes. Henry is an enigma and everyone seems to want a part of him.

And I seem to be getting a bigger part of him now. An
emotional part. Henry’s opening up to me, showing me an imperfect, vulnerable,
self-deprecating side to him that I would never have believed existed.

It makes my heart swell. Even with the topic at hand.

And yet, something about this doesn’t add up. “If you’re
charged, why can’t your dad just take over again until you can clear your name?
Didn’t he run it for years?” He seems quite involved, still.

Henry’s gaze drops to the floor, a somber mask settling over
his features. “Because my father has pancreatic cancer and it’s terminal.”

“I’m... so sorry.” I wasn’t expecting that.

He nods. “They’ve given him three more years at most. He
wants to spend them relaxing on an island somewhere, knowing that he made the
right decisions about our family legacy. That’s why I’ve been acting CEO for
the last eighteen months.”

“That’s just.... I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine my dad
dying.”

“You two are close?”

I smile. “Yeah.” He’s a man of few words, and he hates the
phone so much that I’ll be lucky to talk to him once while I’m here, but he was
the one who spent hours in the fields, teaching me how to catch a baseball. He
was the one who hugged me while I cried and told me that Jed doesn’t deserve
me, even as Mama chirped in the background, minimizing Jed’s “mistake.” Even
thinking about saying good-bye to him forever makes my throat close up and my
eyes water.

A sympathetic smile touches Henry’s lips as he peers down at
me. “I’m guessing your dad and my dad are very different. Still... it’ll be a
shock when he’s gone. But giving me controlling share of Wolf Hotels is the
right decision, and I know he wants to do it.”

“Well, I don’t plan on telling your father what we’ve been
doing, so....”

“I’m not worried about you telling him. I’m worried about
him finding out.” Henry’s chiseled jaw tenses. “I don’t know what’s going to
happen in the next few weeks, but I’m guessing there are going to be lawyers
asking questions, and if the media gets hold of the story, they’ll be asking
questions. There may be a detective calling. Staff.... They’ll all be asking
you. I’m going to be under a microscope, which means you’re going to be under a
microscope. If there’s anything at all you might have said about me already, to
anyone....”

“I haven’t told a soul.”

“Are you positive?”

I frown, racking my brain for anything I may have said about
Henry that could be misconstrued. “Oh my God.”

Henry’s eyes flash. “What?”

“That text to Jed, the one when we were in the boat. You
know, about you staring at my breasts?”

“Shit. Right. That was my fault.” He pauses. “Okay. Text him
back and tell him you were just kidding, trying to make him jealous. Tell him
I’m a dick but I don’t pay any attention to your boobs or any other part of
you.”

“Okay.” I groan, remembering the e-mail to Lucy. “I also
told my friend over e-mail that I thought you were really hot.”

He smirks. “Don’t worry about that one. There are plenty of
those floating around about me. Doesn’t mean I slept with all those women.”

I roll my eyes. “What do I say if someone flat out asks me
if we’ve...
you know
.” Good grief. The man just had me tied up and bent me
over a table and I still can’t use the actual words?

Henry doesn’t seem to notice. “Then you honor the
confidentiality contract that you signed on your first day working for me.”

“But that’s not....” I frown. Does
sex with Henry
fall under that contract?

“Listen to me very carefully, Abbi. No one can know about
us. You tell anyone who asks—
anyone,
including my father—that you are my
assistant and I’m your boss, and we have a professional relationship. You know
nothing about my previous assistant or anything that may or may not have
transpired.”

“You expect me to outright lie to
your father
?”

He smirks. “Why not? You lied to your own mother.”

“This is different.”

He heaves a sigh and, while he’s being patient with me, I
think his patience is running out. “Do you want everyone on this resort and
your family and friends at home to know how much you love fucking your boss?”

He knows the answer to that as well as I do. “But what if the
police ask me?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far.” He sounds much more
calm about the whole situation than he was twenty minutes ago.

But I’m not. “But what if it
does
get that far?” I
press.

“Then you tell them that you’re my assistant and you have signed
a confidentiality agreement that keeps you from discussing me at any length. I can
hire a lawyer to protect your rights. And if they ask whether I’ve ever forced
myself on you, you say no because that’s the truth. Anything beyond that is
none of anyone’s fucking business as far as I’m concerned. My relationship with
you has no bearing on what happened between Kiera and me.”

“I’m a terrible liar, Henry.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” he mutters wryly, adjusting the front
of my blouse and holding out my blazer for me. “Come on. We need to go.”

I barely have time to grab my iPad. With one hand at my
back, he gently herds me toward the door as my mind still churns with all the
fears and worries that were suppressed for those brief stolen moments of
intimacy, all the more potent now that I know the truth and my heart has
nothing but affection for this man once again.

Henry’s touch disappears the second we step outside. He enacts
the unspoken two-feet-at-all-times distance rule between us, that’s intended to
steer people clear of any suspicions of inappropriate behavior between boss and
assistant. It’s so much harder when I’m so desperate to reach out and touch
him, to hold on to the private connection we shared for a little while longer.

I sigh.

“What now?”

“Nothing. Just preparing for the asshole version of you again,”
I mutter, steeling myself.

He chuckles, but I’m not laughing.

Will two feet be enough? If Kiera’s claims get out in the
media, and people start looking at us under a microscope, it’ll be impossible
for me to hide the way Henry stirs my blood and makes me hot, how I’m
hyperaware of where he is in the room at all times, how I’m constantly checking
my phone to see if he has messaged, how I can’t keep the stupid grin off my
face when I think about him unzipping his pants in front of me, of how hard he
gets for me.

They’ll know right away.

“I can hear you thinking,” he grumbles under his breath as
we make our way along the covered path.

“I can’t help it. I’m overwhelmed. This all has me frazzled.”

“I can’t have you frazzled right now. I need you
levelheaded.”

“Levelheaded. Right.” If I were levelheaded, I probably wouldn’t
have let my boss under my skirt. I surely wouldn’t be fantasizing about life
with Henry after Wolf Cove. Will I visit Henry in New York? Will he visit me in
Chicago for my last year of college? I won’t be a Wolf Hotel employee by then,
so we can make out in the middle of the street and no one can say a word.

Maybe I should let him fire me so I can just stay in his
cabin, ordering room service and having sex with him for the rest of the
summer. Sure, it might get kind of boring, and I wouldn’t be earning any money,
and I’d be the talk of the entire hotel, but....

Suddenly, I notice that Henry’s not beside me anymore. I
stop and turn to find him just standing there, watching me, a strange look on his
face.

“What the fuck am I thinking, bringing you with me to meet my
father?” He glances at his watch. “I need you to make yourself scarce. Parading
you around will only irritate him right now.”

“Okay?” I’m not going to take offense to that. Honestly,
it’s a relief. If Henry’s nervous to see him, then I shouldn’t be there.

His jaw clenches. “And do me a favor; stay the hell away
from Scott. He’s a fucking weasel, but he’s slick and perceptive, and he’s probably
sharpening his knife to plunge it into my back. He’s been waiting for something
like this to happen since my dad appointed me CEO and not him, and he’ll want
to make sure he has plenty of ammo. He’ll lie and manipulate and interrogate
you until he gets the answer he wants.”

I feel my face blanch. “Interrogate?”

Henry drops his voice to a low murmur. “Hell, he won’t even
need to interrogate you. One look at those big golden eyes and those plump lips
and those fucking beautiful big tits, and he’ll know there’s no way I was able
to resist you.”

His words pull a soft gasp from my lips. “Okay. I’ll keep
away from him.”

“I should have hired a male assistant. Or an elderly woman.”
He sighs, his gaze skating over my body. “You know, one day, when this is all
over and I officially control the company, I’m going to strip you down and fuck
you right here.”

Blood rushes to my head with the abrupt change in subject,
and his flash pan change in demeanor. Private Henry is back, but we’re not in
private. “
Here
?” I look around. It’s a secluded path, screened from
bugs, shielded from the elements above, surrounded by dense bush and only used
by the three Penthouse Cabins’ guests and the staff catering to those guests. I
rarely ever pass anyone on my way to and from Henry’s place. It’s quite
peaceful and private. Still, just beyond those trees, maybe a hundred feet away
and definitely within earshot, is a resort full of people.

What Henry’s talking about is basically exhibitionism. Is he
serious?

One glance at the hard look on his face tells me he is.

My body, which can still feel him inside me, responds
immediately. But this isn’t good. The lines between Private Henry and Public
Mr. Wolf are beginning to blur for him. “I think you need to focus on your
various serious problems at hand,” I warn him in a slow, careful voice.

His jaw clenches. “Believe me, those problems are still
very
much in the forefront of my mind. I’m just setting something to look forward to
once they’re all resolved. You know, goals.”

“Goals.” I drop my gaze to the front of his pants, to the
bulge forming. Goals for his dick, apparently. Which is exactly what got him
into his current problems. I do believe that Henry is a smart and shrewd
businessman. He’s just not thinking clearly right now, and he has a lot to lose
by not thinking clearly. He
does
need me to be levelheaded because he
can’t seem to be. “Okay, how about we focus on more responsible goals for now.”

He closes the distance, breaking the two-foot rule.

“What are you doing?” I hiss, glancing around.

“Trying to hold on to what we had back there for a little
longer.” He jerks his head toward the cabin. “Trying to avoid reality.”

So, he felt the deep connection too. My heart swells. “I
didn’t think Henry Wolf avoided anything.”

“That’s because you haven’t met my father yet.”

This must be what Belinda was talking about when she said
Henry gets reckless with his father’s imminent approach. Only, I think it’s
been amplified by the Kiera mess. The combination seems to have really thrown
Henry for an emotional loop.

And I have the overwhelming urge to hide him from the world
until he can get a grip on himself because this version of Henry should not be
talking to
anyone.
“Why don’t I grab the truck and an ax, and we can
drive out to that spot to cut some wood.”

His brow arches with playful curiosity. “Right now?”

“Right this instant. Just say the word.”

He frowns. “You’d actually go back there?”

“Yes.”

“Even with the grizzly bear lurking around?”

A shiver runs down my back at the thought of those beady eyes
and sharp claws. “Even with the grizzly bear lurking around.”

“He could be more aggressive this time around.”

“Then we’ll get eaten. That’s a really good way of avoiding reality.”

Henry’s head tips back and he belts out a deep, hearty laugh
that makes me smile wide. I wish he laughed more. With a deep groan, he continues
walking along the path. “Thank you. I needed that.”

I fall into step with him again. “So, do you want me to just
go back to my cabin?”