A strange sense of calm washed over me as I gazed back at my reflection in the mirror.
This felt more like me. As much as I liked the barefoot girl padding around in a bathrobe, this was me. This was what I’d worked for. It might be possible to have both. Honestly, I didn’t know. But either way, I had to make sure not to lose sight of the girl standing in front of me.
Although, it had to be said, even she looked a little different.
There was a flush of color in my cheeks, and a strange kind of glow lighting up all of my features. I’d always thought that was a weird saying. That people had the capacity to glow. The only person I’d ever seen do it was Nick, but he tended to defy most laws of physics so it didn’t really count. But this...? This
was a glow. No two ways about it.
Still casting my reflection suspicious glances out of the corner of my eye, I raided the downstairs guest closet, emerged with a fabulous trench coat, and headed out to the elevator. A part of me couldn’t believe that Nick was still sleeping. It was after five. Well past his normal wake-up call.
Maybe you weren’t the only one pushed to your limit yesterday. Maybe even the great sex-god himself needs a little sleep...
The thought pleased me greatly, and I rode down to the lobby with a little grin. From there, it was just a quick cab ride to get to my office.
I paid the driver swiftly, and deliberately avoided looking at any newspapers on the way in to my building. As long as I didn’t spot a boxing ring out of the corner of my eye, I didn’t much care what they were reporting. This was going to be a normal day. A day to tug me back out of the clouds and place my feet firmly on the ground where they belonged.
No Nick Hunter nonsense. This day was all Abby.
“Morning, Carl!” I called as I sailed past the morning security guard.
His mouth dropped open in shock as I passed by. In all likelihood, we had never seen each other at this time of day. If I ever had to come in this early, chances were that my assistant, Allison, was wheeling a comatose version in on a cot with an IV of caffeine stuck in my arm.
“Uh...good morning, Miss Wilder. Lovely day.”
“Isn’t it?”
I flashed him a bright smile and disappeared into the lift—riding it up to my floor.
As hard-working as they were, my staff tended to despise the mornings as much as I did myself. It was a rare day indeed if anyone showed up before seven, and I was actually looking forward to having a few hours of peace and quiet before the horde descended. A little office-time relaxation to sort through the chaotic whirlwind that had become my—
“Abigail!”
I felt back against the elevator wall, clutching my chest, only to see a dozen shell-shocked people staring back at me. My entire team. Frozen like Manhattan statues.
“Abigail?” It was Jake who had first called my name, but Allison, my pint-sized assistant, approached me now. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, and she kept preemptively flinching, like at any moment, I could faint dead away. “What are you doing here?”
A rather strange question to ask your boss, no matter what the hour.
I pulled in a deep breath and peeled myself off the papered wall, trying to gather what was left of my composure. “I happen to work here.” The doors dinged closed behind me, as I stepped out onto the busy workroom floor. “What the hell are all of you doing here? You realize that the sun’s not even awake, right?”
The smell of burnt coffee hung in the air like a sleepless fog, and twelve pairs of unblinking eyes stared back at me. Finally, it was Jake who stepped forward.
“We’ve sort of...been here all night,” he admitted.
My eyebrows shot up.
“All night?”
The last time the team worked through the night was when Nick was accidentally declared a god by a remote tribe in the Amazon who refused to let him leave. The only time before that was when the entire Hunter family had been discovered harboring runaway members of the royal family of Norway. (Result of a croquet match gone awry.)
Needless to say...these things were few and far between.
“Why—what happened?” I asked in an instinctual hush. An overpowering wave of frustration tightened my chest at the fact that I didn’t already fucking know—but that was a matter for a different time. “Did someone die?”
A strange hush fell over the room, and I glanced automatically behind me, wondering if someone new had come in. No one seemed willing to open their mouths, and eventually, it was only my dear Allison and Jake who stepped forward to tell me. They did so slowly—strategically fanning outward to block as much of the room as possible from view.
Why? What could possibly be so...