Snow and the Seven Men: A Reverse Harem Fairy Tale Romance(17)

She was moaning as if she’d had a say in my decision to go and I stifled a sigh.

“Who the hell puts out bear traps in Iceland?” Alex mused aloud. Before I could stop myself, I muttered, “Jimmy does.”

A pang of melancholic affection sliced through me but somehow I managed to keep it together.

“Who’s Jimmy?” Something in my voice had piqued her attention and I blushed, knowing that I was saying too much.

“One of the drillers. Listen, I’m exhausted,” I said. “I don’t mean to blow you off but I’m really behind at work now and I—”

“Hang on there, Sash,” Alex interrupted, leaning into the camera. “Are you staying there?”

The disbelief in her voice was almost palpable.

“No! You’re coming home!” Mom screamed so loudly, I was shocked Queenie and Hunter didn’t come running inside to see who was being murdered.

“I’m not coming home. I have less than three weeks here and I have a job to do.” I was trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Of course I’m staying!”

Not to mention that my men are here and I’m not ready to leave them…not yet.

I had no idea if I’d see them again before I left but I also relished in the idea that they were so near. I mean, I could easily go to them—if I wanted to reopen Pandora’s box. I moved the idea out of my mind temporarily.

“Sasha, you’re hurt. You need medical attention!”

“No I am fine, really…” So much for keeping my cool. I inhaled and closed my eyes, counting to ten.

“I need you two to stop worrying now,” I pleaded. Knowing that they were on edge wasn’t making me feel any better and I couldn’t afford any more ill feelings. I already felt like I was bursting at the seams.

“Sash, I’m going to dig into Mirror, Mirror. This is unsafe work condition. Maybe there’s a story—” Alex started to say, her journalistic intuition clinging for something to do to feel helpful while I was so far away.

“Please,” I begged, my will to fight evaporating all together. “Please, don’t. This is the company I work for. We’re trying to save the environment, Alex. Doing a story like this only sets our progress back.”

Alex’s mouth tightened but to my relief, she nodded.

“Okay.”

“Seriously, I’ll chat with you both tomorrow, okay? I just need to get organized here.”

Begrudgingly, they let me off the call but as soon as I disconnected, I missed them. Even if I’d decided to stay with my boys, I would have never been able to stay away from Mom and Alex.

What emotional mess had I gotten myself into?

I took a second to collect myself before bringing my laptop back out to the lab area and when I stepped out of the bedroom, I grimaced in disgust. Queenie and Hunter had their heads together and were whispering stupidly at each other. There was a twisted sexual tension in the air, which I hadn’t noticed until that moment.

I guess I know what they were doing while I was gone—having the worst sex imaginable.

A shiver of humiliation slid down my spine as I thought about the time I’d wasted pining after Hunter and the awful five minutes we’d had together. Looking at him now, I was disgusted that I’d ever let him touch me. He wasn’t a man—he was a silly little boy with self-esteem issues. I could see that now with blinding clarity. Him and Queenie deserved one another. On some level I was happy that he wouldn’t be acting like a kicked puppy now that I was back but it didn’t dampen my repulsion for the situation between them.

“Are you ready to get back to work?” My supervisor asked, barely pulling away from Hunter as she stared at me. She wasn’t quite barking but it was close enough.

“I’m doing fine, thanks,” I retorted, flopping down at my desk. “And thanks for coming with me to collect the samples.”

There was an almost ominous silence that followed my jibe and I had to look over my shoulder to see if they were still there because it had gotten so quiet.

“Well I don’t suppose it would have done any good to have two of us lost in the snow, would it?” Queenie retorted sharply and I raised my eyebrow dubiously.

“Really?” I snapped. “That’s your excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse!” she whiplashed at me. “You’re the only one I know who could get lost on such an easy path!”

Her voice was screechy and I wondered why she was acting so strangely.

Then I realized what she was worried about—she was afraid that her bosses would find out what happened.

She didn’t call it in to Mirror, Mirror!

The thought was appalling. Did she sincerely think I’d just run off to hide or did she care so little about me that she was just waiting to see if I was dead before calling in a missing teammate?

A part of me wanted to savor the threat that I was telling by dangling it over her head but at the end of the day, I wasn’t as big an asshole as she was—even though I wished I could be.

Still, I didn’t say anything to ease her conscience.

I turned my attention back to work and sighed when I realized how damaged the samples I’d taken were. It was my own fault for having left them in the bag for so long but I hadn’t been thinking about work when I’d been gone, not for one minute.

No, I’d been living in a fantasy with men who adored me and bent to my every whim and desire.

And now I had nothing but shitty samples.

“Where are you going?” Hunter demanded when I rose from my desk and headed toward my parka.

I turned and smirked at him before slipping on my jacket.

“I need more samples,” I replied. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

He grunted and rose to follow me as Queenie gave us both a scathing look but I only smiled sweetly.

Screw both of you, I thought.





19





Graham





I didn’t even try to sleep. How could I? My heart was thudding like a bass line in my ears as everyone else was off in dreamland.

How could they do out so easily? How could they just fall asleep as if Sasha hadn’t been here last night, tantalizing us with her mere nearness?

Bash had made dinner that night and I could still feel it rumbling around in my gut like a stone. How had we eaten like that before Sasha?

I couldn’t get her out of my head. Was she okay with that wretched duo we’d let her leave with? Why hadn’t she called or at least emailed? Hadn’t she promised to do that?

I knew I was overthinking everything, that she’d only been gone a few hours but if this is what it was going to be like, things weren’t apt to get better, were they? I loathed the endless questions, which seemed to snowball in my head but there was no easy way to stop them.

I rose from my bed and looked around the dorm for any signs of life but everyone was done for the night. It felt empty in the room, like the oxygen had been sucked away.

There was one empty bed—Dan’s, and I felt a smidgen of hope. Maybe I wasn’t alone in my desolation after all. Maybe he was off thinking about her too.

I hurried out of the dorm, plotting my spiel to Dan but when I found him, he was hunched over his desk, his face twisted in a scowl.

He’s not pining over Sasha. He’s working!

That shouldn’t have surprised me. He was always working but it seemed to me that he should have been more affected by Sasha’s departure than he was.

“Hey,” I said, sauntering into the room. “How’s it going?”

He didn’t even bother to meet my eyes.

“I’m a little busy right now, Graham. Can this wait?”

I bristled defensively. No, it couldn’t wait.

“Not really,” I muttered, flopping onto an oxblood chair, facing him but he didn’t look up from his paperwork. “Don’t you miss her?”

I finally elicited a reaction from him but it wasn’t the only I’d wanted. If anything, he seemed more agitated by my question.

“Can we not do this right now? I’m up to my ears in financials.” I could tell he was trying not to snap but I didn’t want to wait. I needed to get this out and unfortunately for him, he was the only one awake to hear it.

“Dan, we let her in, we promised to protect her and we sent her away with those people—”

“Those people are her team. She came to Iceland with ‘those people’. She left on her own accord. Stop asking like she was kidnapped by the evil queen.”

I gaped at him but I realized that was exactly how I felt—like she’d been taken against her will.

“But you could see she didn’t want to go!” I exploded. “It was plain as day!”

Dan sighed heavily and tossed his pen onto the mound of documents before him, sinking back into his chair. He seemed to be choosing his words carefully before he spoke.

“I like Sasha,” he told me reasonably. “A lot. Probably too much for the situation.”

I felt a surge of excitement.

“So you agree then? We need to get her back.”

“No,” he countered. “I think she’s a grown woman who can make her own decisions and she decided to go back to work. The same way I did. She knew that the time we had together was amazing and a lot of fun but it’s time to get back to reality now.”

He looked at me meaningfully but I didn’t move.