"You son of a wolf!" Rolf said instead of a greeting, while the other brothers gathered around him. "Running around with a vampire? And the CEO of Blood Lust no less. How did you bag that beauty?"
"I heard she saved you from our security guards," his brother Ernst said.
"Weren't you supposed to be her bodyguard?" his sister Felicia asked. "How come she's protecting you?"
All his brothers and sisters worked at Bones R Ours Corporation, so it was no surprise that they already knew about the incident. But Rex had hoped he might be spared the questioning.
"Does my puppy brother have a girlfriend now?" another sister, Marcia, asked, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and giving him a little shake. "Was she too shy to come in and say hi? Did she think we were going to eat her?"
"We would have," Felicia said, while the others burst into laughter.
Rex didn't think they would have stood a chance against his boss, if they wanted to pick a fight with her. But he also didn't think he had a chance against his brothers and sisters if he were to pick a fight with them. He kept quiet, hoping they'd get bored and move on to something else. Maybe pick on someone else for a change.
"Isn't she the CEO of that vampire corporation downtown?" his eldest brother, Jobart, asked. Obviously he wasn't ready to drop the subject. "Guess you bit on more than you can chew."
More laughter followed this remark, and more jokes followed.
"How did she like the artificial sunlight at Bones R Ours?"
"How was the meeting with our CEO? Did she sizzle?"
"Maybe Blood Lust should start making sunblock instead of their icky fake blood."
Rex felt his cheeks burning. He wanted to bark back some clever answer, but nothing came to mind. Instead, he reared out of the kitchen and tried to leave. He'd taken five steps into the corridor when Rolf caught up with him.
"Hey," Rolf said, putting a hand on Rex's shoulder to stop him. "I like her. She's not afraid of sunlight. You could smell her flesh burning in there, but she didn't even let you cover her face with that parasol. That takes guts! Bring her over for dinner sometime, they'll be impressed."
Rex mumbled a thank you and retreated to his room. He didn't know what was worse: his siblings making fun of his boss, or Rolf assuming that he was dating her. As if a vampire could ever be interested in a werewolf. It was said that vampires never even drank werewolf blood, they said it had a stench to it and they'd rather starve. He buried his face in his pillow, remembering the cold touch of her finger on his lips. He'd been such a failure tonight. He felt so useless. She'd even sent him home early.
"You had one job!" he told himself aloud. "How can you mess up so badly, Rex?"
***
Eve wanted to drive on, take the limo out of town and keep going until she'd cleared her thoughts. But she had work to do. Unlike her good-for-nothing bodyguard, the CEO did not have the privilege of being able to afford taking the night off. She didn't even have the time to swing by the lab and try to recreate the flavor of Rex's blood. It was delicious, it was amazing, and she would have loved to be able to synthesize that. But there were more urgent matters to attend to.
She parked the limo in the Blood Lust Tower garage, and took the private elevator straight to the CEO floor. Isobel jumped out of her seat when she saw Eve entering the office.
"How did it go? Where's Rex? Did they kill him?"
Eve took a deep, steadying breath. She hadn't thought Isobel had such a wild imagination. Kill him? Really? He was a werewolf like everyone at Bones R Ours, or at least everyone important there.
"They nearly killed me," she said, "if you were wondering. Rex is fine. I gave him the rest of the night off."
"Oh, the poor thing!" Isobel said. "He must be heartbroken! You know how he wants to guard you at all times! Did he make puppy eyes at you to ask you to keep him?"
"He's a werewolf, not a dog," Eve pointed out. It annoyed her that Isobel seemed to have taken a liking to Rex, just like the mailroom girls and the girl from Recruiting. What was it with this pup? All the vampire girls seemed to want to adopt him.
"Well, he's adorable," Isobel said. "Can we keep him?"
"He's a diversity hire, I can't just fire him for no reason," Eve pointed out. "So, yes, we are keeping him."
She sat down at her desk and leaned back in her armchair. She hadn't realized just how tired she was until now, but it felt so good to sit after all the events of the day. She resisted the desire to take off her stiletto-heeled shoes and make herself fully comfortable.
Meanwhile, Isobel was clapping her hands like a child.
"Oh, I forgot!" the secretary said, regaining her composure. "Lady Cassandra called. She says she has urgent information."
"Did she say what it is?"
"No. She said she wants to tell you in person. No phone calls. But she's willing to see you tonight."
"Outside of work hours? This must be good."
"Yes, she did mention she charges double for nighttime work."
Eve stood up again.
"That's fine," she said. "I have something I'd like to ask her as well. Money is no object. Tell my driver to wait for me in my limo and call Lady Cassandra to tell her I'll be there in half an hour."
When she reached the door, she stopped and threw one more order over her shoulder:
"Have a meeting scheduled for when I get back. With all of my managers. Even the ones who are on vacation."