About Last Night (About Last Night #1)(24)

“Mia. Sit, please.” She added the please, but I don’t think she meant it.

I didn’t dare speak. This woman was fierce. A mental image of Addison Dietrich in female Viking armor, holding a sword and shouting as she felled a man with a single swipe of her blade crossed my mind, her blonde hair braided at the sides, her current scowl present. The man felled was Nicholas.

I gulped. “Have I done something wrong?”

Oh, God, I sounded weak. And like a bear, she smelled fear on me. I know this, because she grinned, catlike. “I don’t know. Have you?”

My head tilted in thought as the previous day ran through my mind in fast-forward. “No.”

She ran a delicate hand over the front of her little black dress, smoothing it over. “Firstly, I wanted to welcome you to the team.”

It seemed the right time to say “Thank you,” so I did. But I added, “I’m happy to be here.”

Her grin fell from her face and she looked me up and down as if to say, ‘You should be.’ Rather than saying that, she uttered a cool, “I saw you had the misfortune of meeting Mr. Dietrich. I’ll not apologize for his behavior, because I’m not his mother, but you’ll be glad to know he doesn’t normally work from the office so he won’t be seen.”

I was confused and made the mistake of stating, “Mr. Dietrich was a complete gentleman. He seemed very nice.”

Her eyes flashed and her voice turned an eerie quiet. “A gentleman was he?”

I realized I had f*cked up, and tried to fix my relationship with my in-office boss. By fix, I mean f*ck it up further in a huge way. “What I meant was that Nicholas helped prepare me by giving me a few tips.”

Oh, shit. Had I just called my outer-office boss by his first name?

The air around Addison turned ice-cold to match the frost forming in her eyes.

But I didn’t stop there. Almost wheezing in distress, I added, “Mr. Dietrich was completely professional. At all times. Even when I accused him of following me. Not that he was. He was just a guy on my bus. I didn’t know he was my boss when he smiled at me.”

Well…shit.

Addison’s cheeks had flushed Barbie-pink. “I see,” she stated, and I wanted to yell, ‘No, you don’t!’ but I feared anything I said further would be held against me in the court of Addison. Clearing her throat, she ran a finger down the cool wood of her desk. “I need you to understand something, Mia, because you’re a pretty girl.” Her icy gaze met mine. “If you f*ck my husband, I will end you.”

My mouth rounded in shock.

Before I could speak, she went on, “I don’t make threats. I make promises. I’ve been in this industry a long time, and if I find that you and…” she gritted her teeth and hissed out, “Nicholas have been disregarding our office fraternization policy, you will never work in events ever again. Not in this city, anyway.”

My blood ran cold. My face pale, and I sputtered feebly, “I-I-I-I don’t even know him.”

Addison Dietrich smiled. “Good. Then you don’t have anything to worry about.” She extended her arm to the door. “That will be all for now.”

As I numbly stood and walked out of the office, Addison called out, “Oh, and Mia?”

I turned and waited. She searched my face a moment before adding sincerely, “Nice work on the Johnson’s charity dinner.”

Walking back to my desk, I sat and wondered how I could go so quickly from yesterday’s highest high to today’s lowest low.

The sad truth of it was that some things could only be cured with a doughnut. Or three.




My brother had been pestering me for some time now about coming to my new apartment, so when he called offering to pick me up and take me to dinner, I accepted immediately.

The truth was Harry was my biggest fan, and I was his. Oh, sure, I tried to act the grownup, but sometimes, all I wanted to do was vent then cry on his shoulder like I had done so many times during high school. He was my hero, my champion, the only man in my life I would ever truly trust and feel safe enough to rely on. My brother was a good man with a gentle heart. I loved him a lot.

He pulled up out front of my work and wound down the window as I walked to the car. “Excuse me. Have you seen a short, annoying girl with gigantic ears and a gimpy leg? Chews gum like a horse and answers to Minnie?”

Shaking my head, I stepped into his silver sedan, buckled up, and then punched him in the arm. Hard. “Good afternoon to you too, butthead.”

He chuckled. “Why am I suddenly allowed to see your apartment? Are you out of food already, or did you just give in knowing I’d wear you down?”

My smile was weak. “I know you’re busy. You don’t need to babysit me.” A jolt of pain in my arm stunned me as my brother punched me. Rubbing my arm fiercely, I shouted, “What the hell was that for?”

Harry looked irritated as he drove on. “You think the only reason I wanted to come see your place was out of obligation?”

I stared at him with a face that read, ‘You’re trying to tell me it’s not?’

He glanced over, read my face, and shook his head. “I’ll admit I’ll always feel responsible for you, Mia, and I won’t apologize for that. But did you really think I only wanted to see your place because I’m checking up on you? Maybe it’s because in the past five years I’ve only seen you at holidays. Or maybe it’s because you make me laugh and I have fun with you.” His voice turned quiet. “Maybe I just missed my damn sister, Mia.”