Before Mace manages to leave the office, Cannon leans in, clasping the frame. “There’s a woman here to see you, boss. She seems upset, and…”
I lift both brows. “And?”
He glances over his shoulder and then back before whispering, “Judging by the bruising, it looks like someone beat the fuck out of her a few days ago.”
The hairs on the back of my neck rise. “Name?”
“June Brien.”
Mace chuckles under his breath as he leaves my office.
Two
June
* * *
“June?”
I spin around to find Blade hurrying toward me.
Coming here was a terrible idea. When he gave me his card last night and told me to call him anytime, I hadn’t expected to need him twelve hours later. I also hadn’t realized when he said he owned a protection agency that it would be this…extravagant.
As soon as I stepped through the front door, I knew Black Blade Protection would be way out of my pay range. I’m on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise. The receptionist looks like she belongs in a lawyer’s office. She introduced herself as Rachell and was nothing but kind to me, but she’s wearing a fancy blouse, a pencil skirt, and spiked heels. Her hair is up in a twist.
To say I feel out of place is an understatement. I’m horrifyingly underdressed and underpaid for the likes of this agency.
“Come.” Blade gently cups my good elbow and leads me out of the reception area.
This place is large and spotless. The floors gleam. The lights are bright. There are over a dozen offices off this hallway, and Blade guides me to the open double doors at the end of it.
When I step inside, it’s hard not to gasp audibly. His office is huge. The view is amazing. I’m definitely way out of my depth here.
There’s a glass table with four chairs around it, two fancy leather armchairs, and a loveseat on the other side of the room. An enormous desk with four giant monitors sits in the middle. It also has two leather chairs across from it.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I mutter under my breath. This is madness. I can’t ask this man for help. People probably pay him more by the hour than I have in my bank account.
I’m tired. My entire body hurts. It took me over an hour to get dressed one-handed, and it wasn’t my dominant hand. That’s the one that’s broken.
My hair is a mess because lifting my one hand to comb it hurt too much. I haven’t washed it in two days because how could I have managed that? Luckily, it’s wavy and past my shoulders, so I can tuck it behind my ears. Suddenly, I wish I’d stayed in my apartment, crawled under the covers, and slept all day.
Except I couldn’t rest after what happened this morning, and I’ve been shaking ever since. I have few options. One of them would be to go back to the women’s shelter I went to three years ago when I returned to Seattle.
Yeah, that’s really the only other option I could think of before I came here.
Blade shuts the double doors, guides me to the loveseat, helps me sit, and takes the spot next to me. His brows furrow as he cups my face.
That’s when the tears fall. I’ve fought them for over a day, but the dam breaks loose, and now I’m mortified. I can’t stop the avalanche of emotions from overflowing.
Blade scoots closer and surprises me by gently tucking one hand under my legs, supporting my back with the other, lifting me off the seat, and carefully arranging me on his lap. He tucks my head under his chin and rubs my back. “It’s okay, honey. Let it out. You’ve got to be exhausted. You’ve been so brave for so long.”
He has no idea how long I’ve been holding my shit together. Not for a day. Not for two days. More like for a thousand days or two thousand days. Exhausted doesn’t cover it. But the past day and a half pushed me to my limits.
Blade reaches across me and grabs a few tissues from the end table. What kind of guy has tissue boxes in his office? Does he get a lot of women who fall apart in his office?
Ridiculous. Maybe the man has allergies.
He gently tips my head back and dabs at my face before holding the soft tissues up to my nose. “Blow, honey.”
