Page 204 of Wild Card 13

“That’s different?”

“In my experience, yes.”

Dottie wandered back into the office and nudged her nose against his hand until he resumed petting her. Traitor.

“Charlotte?” he asked.

I looked at the blank monitor, then at the folder beneath my hand. “She sent another email.”

His jaw flexed once. “Another?”

“Threatening hostile workplace claims.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Dottie bumped his hand again, offended by the interruption in service. Ty looked down and resumed petting her, though his shoulders had not completely loosened.

“You okay?” he asked.

I almost said yes.

It was right there. Easy. Polished. Automatic.

Instead, I looked at him for half a second too long.

At the travel exhaustion around his eyes. The flattened mess of his hair. The hoodie, the open coat, the faint line where his team-issued dress clothes had probably irritated his neck for half the night before he changed. He looked like the kind of drained that should have sent him straight home to a dark house, a shower, and whatever recovery schedule Freya had already threatened into existence.

And still, he was here.

“I’m annoyed,” I said.

His face softened like he understood that annoyed was as honest as I could afford. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I bet.”

I reached for my water bottle because my hands needed something to do. The plastic crackled softly beneath my fingers. “It willgo away. Legal will handle it. Sarah already has half the documentation, and HR has the rest. Charlotte is angry, not strategic.”

“She seemed strategic.”

“She seemed strategic because people mistook withholding information for intelligence.”

Dottie, apparently bored by our failure to provide meaningful entertainment, returned to her bed and collapsed onto it with dramatic heaviness. Her tail thumped twice against the cushion before settling.

Ty watched her for a second, then looked back at me. “She goes everywhere with you now?”

“Mostly.”

“Good.”

I looked down at the folder and closed it. “She likes sleeping under my desk and judging meetings.”

“Same.”

“You have never slept under my desk.”

“Not yet.”

“Burns.”

His smile appeared then, small and lazy and unmistakably his.