From Wolfless Omega To The Rival Alpha's Queen novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Binder

Keira goes back to Davenant Tower and builds Blair's Phoenix binder with her own signature on every contract, while Blair charms her in person. Blair says Broderick is bringing her to Keira's mother's birthday dinner.

On Thursday I went back to Davenant Tower and put my badge on.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done with my hands.

I had told Broderick I was sleeping at my mother's all week, and he had texted back a thumbs up.

Not a question, not a missing you.

I rode the elevator up with my teeth set and my laptop bag over my shoulder.

Orson had said I did not have to go back.

I had said I did.

If I walked out of Davenant with nothing, Broderick would hand Phoenix to Blair clean.

If I walked out with the right paper, he would hand her a project that did not belong to him.

The binder was due on his desk by noon.

It was supposed to be a gift wrapped in my own work.

So I built it.

Every vendor agreement, every permit, every letter from the city, each with my signature on the bottom line.

Broderick had never once read a bottom line.

I put the binder together in two hours, tabbed and labeled, and I was careful about the one thing I would not put in it.

The cover page with the legal owner.

That page was in my bag.

At eleven the door of my office opened without a knock.

"You must be Keira."

The woman in the doorway was tall and ash blonde, in a cream coat that had never seen rain.

Her smile went all the way up.

"I'm Blair. I'm so sorry. My flight changed and nobody told me the visitor desk needs a badge, and I've been standing in the lobby for twenty minutes holding my own suitcase."

She actually held it up.

Nobody else on that floor would have said so.

Broderick's assistants would have been fired for letting her stand there.

"I'll fix the badge," I said.

I called down.

Four minutes later a visitor pass was in her hand, and Blair was thanking me twice.

"You are a lifesaver," she said. "Broderick never said how kind you are."

"He doesn't say much."

"He says a lot about you." She dropped into the chair across from my desk and kicked off one shoe. "He said you're the only reason this company is still standing."

I kept my eyes on the screen.

"That's generous."

"He wasn't being generous. You should have seen his face."

I had seen his face, through a crack in a door.

"Can I ask you something?" she said. "A stupid thing. What does he drink in the morning? I want to surprise him and I've forgotten."

I could have lied.

Anyone in my place could have.

I thought about the vanilla syrup and how it felt to carry that cup for seven years.

"Latte," I said. "Vanilla, two pumps."

"Of course. You're perfect, you know that?" She wrote it on her palm with a pen from my desk. "I'd be lost without you here."

On her wrist was a plain gold watch with a worn leather strap.

It was a man's watch and it did not suit her.

I noticed it and thought nothing of it.

She took her shoe back from the floor.

"Is that the Phoenix binder?"

"It's the final one." I slid it across the desk. "Everything is in it. It's Broderick's if you want to walk it down to him."

"Oh, I couldn't." She laid her hand flat on the cover without opening it. "He wants it to be a surprise, and I'm terrible at those. Would you put it on his desk? And tell him nothing."

"I won't tell him anything," I said.

It was true, and I was good at telling the truth in a way nobody looked at twice.

I carried the binder to his office myself.

He wasn't there.

On his desk was a half-finished cup with a ring on the leather blotter.

I left the binder squared to the edge of the wood.

When I came back, Blair was standing by the window on the phone.

She ended the call as I came in and turned around with her whole face lit.

"That was Broderick," she said. "I told him I'm here. He's coming up in a minute, and I've been telling him all about you."

"That's kind."

"Oh, it's true." She picked up her bag. "He told me everything about Saturday, Keira. Your mother's birthday. I think it's the sweetest thing."

I held very still.

"He did."

"He said I should come." She smiled at me warmly. "I've been dying to meet her. I hope that's all right. He's going to bring me."

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