DONOVAN (Gray Wolf Security, #1)(39)

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re all broken.”

He glanced at me. “Not broken, Kate. Just human.”

“Yes, well, the five of you seem to be more human than most.”





Chapter 18


Donovan

The ballroom of the Florence Inn Hotel was a literal Who’s Who of Hollywood with a few Silicon Valley refugees and politicians thrown in for good measure. And Kate seemed to be in her element.

She strutted right into that room, a smile glued to her lips and greetings flying as she moved from person to person. I felt like a puppy on a leash being dragged across the floor without any idea of what the hell was going on around me.

“Better watch out for this one,” David said in my ear through the Bluetooth bud I’d placed there as we got out of the car, “she’s ambitious.”

“Mind your business,” I muttered.

The Bluetooth was supposed to be a way for the team to stay connected, not be a gossip channel. We couldn’t let ourselves get distracted from our mission. Even if these people were as overstuffed as the couch in my parents’ den.

About two hours in, Kate grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the dance floor.

“I need a break,” she said with a tired sigh.

“And here I thought it was just you wanting to be in my arms.”

“There is that, too.”

I pulled her into my arms, cradling her against my chest as we began to sway across the floor to a song that wasn’t really intended to be a slow song. But I don’t think she minded, and I knew I didn’t.

“Kind of makes up for the fact that you chickened out of taking me to prom.”

“Chicken out?” I pushed her back slightly so I could see her face. “You were the one who was afraid your dad would have a stroke or something when he found out about us.”

“Yeah. He might still.” There was a twinkle in her eye that I knew. She was teasing me.

“Is there something for him to find out?”

She shrugged even as she rose up on her tiptoes to kiss my bottom lip gently.

“Let’s not get distracted,” Ash immediately said in my ear.

I grabbed her hand and twirled her away from me, causing the guy dancing with some tall, blond woman a few feet to our right to glare at me. I shrugged, pretending to be slightly inebriated by stumbling as I gathered Kate back against me. The guy turned away.

“We better behave,” I whispered against her ear.

“Katie? Kate Thompson?”

I turned, suddenly on alert, tugging Kate behind me. But then my eyes fell on a face I never thought I would see again.

Amanda Graham.

Her eyes widened when she recognized me at about the same moment I recognized her.

“Donovan Pritchard?”

“Hello, Amanda.”

She stared at me for a long moment, making me wonder what was going through her mind. The last time I’d seen her…well, it wasn’t a pleasant moment.

She’d come to the hospital with a group of kids from the graduation party who got word of what’d happened. She came into the emergency room just in time to watch them roll him out of the trauma room to rush him up to surgery. And the screams that issued from her lips…I’d had to grab her around her waist to keep her from following him onto the elevator.

But then Amanda smiled and reached up to kiss my cheek.

“It’s so lovely to see you. I heard you went into the military.”

“I did. I was given an honorable discharge two years ago.”

Amanda nodded, a smile on her lips that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You should have looked me up when you came back.”

“Do you live in the area?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been in San Francisco for several years now, working at Daddy’s tech company up there.”

“Really?”

“Computers were always my thing. You know that.”

I did know that. She and I had half a dozen classes together our senior year, including advanced computer programming. I was happy to hear she’d continued on with it. When I knew her last, she still hadn’t decided what she wanted to do with her life, just that she wanted to be with Joshua.

She and Joshua were closer than any couple I’d known in high school. It was as if they knew they were meant to be together from the first moment she walked into our sophomore English class, a transfer from some high school in Chicago when her father decided he wanted to move the headquarters of his massive conglomerate to the Santa Monica area. From that moment on I was a perpetual third wheel to their almost sickening romance.

“So you work for your dad?”

“I run the company. His name is just on the door.”

“That’s awesome, Amanda.”

She smiled as she tilted her head in acknowledgement. “I’ve actually been talking to Kate about doing business with her bank. We have quite a few telecommuters from this area, and it would be convenient to have a local bank we can work with them through.”

“We have,” Kate said.

Amanda shifted, hiding her face a little behind a curtain of her long, dark hair. There was something about the movement that bothered me. But then Kate stepped forward and kissed her bare cheek and they started talking about dividends and something I didn’t quite catch and I was suddenly lost.