Page 12 of Savage Prince
“Haven?” The word comes off my tongue as though it’s foreign.
He slides his boots off my desk, leaving traces of mud on my calendar that make me itch to slap him silly.
I’ve worked too damn hard to not leave a mess everywhere I go, but Rafe is a different story. He’ll never be anything but a bayou boy, and he doesn’t see a damn thing wrong with it. Hell, he’s proud of the fact.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know, girl.”
I glance down at my watch. “I don’t have time to pretend. I have a meeting with my boss starting in an hour, and I have two hours of work to get done to prep for it.”
“Then maybe you should’ve worked this weekend instead of spending time at a sex club.”
My mouth drops open as shock ricochets through my system. “Are you having me watched?”
He shrugs. “I ain’t got time to babysit you, Tempe, regardless of how much you apparently need it.”
“Who told you?”
Rafe eyes me. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you’ve lost your damn mind. I don’t care how high-and-mighty you think you are these days, there are some places you don’t belong, and Haven is one of them. There are some bad motherfuckers that go there to get their kink on, and I’m not talking about people like us. I’m talking about the rich and powerful kind who would chew you up and toss you out with the trash.”
His warning hits me hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And you shouldn’t. Ever. Stay away from that place and anyone you see coming or going outta there.”
I plant my hands on my hips. “And how do you know so much about this place?”
“Don’t matter, but the fact that I do should warn you off even more.”
I roll my eyes because I’ve gotten this lecture a dozen times. My brother definitely falls under the category ofbad motherfucker. He doesn’t live on the right side of the law on his best day. I’m not sure he ever has. One more reason why having him in my office is less than ideal, regardless of the fact my boss’s husbandisthe wrong side of the law.
“I’m not talking about this with you. So, if that’s all the reason you have to be here, feel free to see yourself out the way you came in.”
Rafe hauls himself out of my chair and stomps across the room. “Tempe, you’re better than that shit. Better than those people. You’ve got a life here. A respectable one that you’ve busted your ass for, because God knows, you’ve lorded it over me plenty. You want to lose everything? Then keep associating with the people at Haven.”
I meet his dark brown eyes, eyes that mirror mine. “I don’t need you telling me what to do anymore. I’m doing just fine on my own.”
His jaw tenses like he wants to strangle me. I recognize the look and ignore it. After a few long seconds of a staring contest, he lets out a sigh.
“Look, you’re all I got left. You expect me not to worry about my baby sister, then you’re fucking crazy.”
“I’m fine.”
He snorts. “You’re not fine, Tempe. You ain’t been fine in a long while. But I ain’t got time to fix that right now. I gotta go. I got a job. A big one.”
Rafe never speaks to me about work, so for him to bring it up, especially here, means this isn’t just a big job, it’s abig job. A chill works its way up my spine because I know Rafe’s line of work isn’t the kind where you’re guaranteed to make it home safe and sound.
“Where? What?”
He tilts his head to the right. “You know better than to ask that kind of shit.”
“How long? When will you be back?”
He reaches out and flips the end of my hair. “You know I won’t miss your birthday, so before then sometime.”
The uneasiness building inside me subsides a bit. “You’re sure?”
His hand claps around on my shoulder. “Damn sure. But you gotta promise me one thing.”
“What?”
