I sank back against the wall of the elevator, letting out a shaky breath.

“Want to stop and wring out your panties now, or are you gonna wait until you get home?” Bass asked, shooting me a knowing grin.

“Shut up,” I said, whacking him across the chest.

“You looked like you were ready to strip naked right there in the glass room and offer yourself up as a gift of purchase.”

“What part of ‘shut up’ don’t you get?” I grumbled as we moved out into the lobby. “Nothing like that happened. You’re clearly seeing what you want to see. Maybe you want to fuck Soren.”

“It’s Soren now, is it?”

“That is his name.”

“Indeed it is, Miss Amato,” he said pointedly.

“I’m taking Serano with me Monday, not you.” At least I could count on him to keep his opinions to himself. The man rarely spoke.

“You already established me as your assistant, I’m afraid. You’re stuck with me now.”

“Somehow I doubt Teresa is going to be there Monday. So I think you should be back at ‘the office’ too.”

“Yeah, speaking of that. I was texting Renzo—”

“Behind my back?”

“Down, tiger,” Bass said, holding his hands up, palms out. “I’m working this job too.”

“If you put some asinine ideas in his head about—”

“Relax. I want this to go well just as much as you do. More, since I don’t have the respect in the family yet that you do. We weren’t even talking about you. Not directly.”

“What were you talking about then?”

“That we need to rent you an office somewhere. There might be a situation where Vale wants to see you at your office. We need somewhere to take him.”

“Right,” I agreed. “Well, I guess I can trust you to handle that.”

“Your faith in me,” he said, pressing a hand dramatically to his chest as we finally saw Serano pulling up out front of the building, “is touching. Truly.”

“Just make sure it’s fully functional, even if we don’t use any of it. Printers, paper, coffee machines, mugs, everything.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Bass said as we slid into the car. “I’ll go get that sorted today. You need to go get… freshened up,” he said, shooting me a smirk over his shoulder.

“Shut it.”

I glanced over at Serano, but he didn’t even seem to be paying us any attention.

But, damn Bastian, he wasn’t wrong.

And I had the weekend to try to build some defenses against Soren Vale.

I had a sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be long enough.

CHAPTER FIVE

Soren

The large rectangular plastic container dropped down on the desk in front of me.

“What the hell is this?”

“Naked pictures of me making pierogi,” Teresa said, deadpan. “It’s a salad; what does it look like?”

“It could feed a family of seven.”