Animal Instincts (Gilded Knights Series Book 3) Read online

  “I heard he’s got a nephew now,” Leftie purrs. “He’s butter for puppies and kids. Isn’t that just…” she sighs and fans her face. “The perfect man.”

  “But with that kid comes a woman,” the other chick inserts. “More gatekeepers.”

  “Not his woman,” T&A on my left argues. “He’s not that kid’s daddy.”

  “Er… excuse me.” I lean forward and reach for the lone magazine sitting on the small table two feet away. I need something, anything to occupy my brain before I eat my briefcase in a desperate effort to get away from this little harem of plotting women. “I just need—”

  “Are you sure you chose the right outfit for today?” T&A on my left simpers.

  I take a moment to realize she’s speaking to me. Another moment to turn and meet her eyes.

  “Pants?” she continues. “Are you going for, like, ‘different stands out’ and all that?”

  “Uh… excuse me?” I repeat myself and snag the magazine. My shirt is cooling quickly, the fabric sticking to my stomach as I move. “I don’t understand your meaning.”

  “Oh, different and ditzy,” T&A on my right chatters. “She might be on to something.”

  “He won’t fall for it,” the other argues. “No way. And everyone knows he’s into blondes.”

  Startled, I reach up and grab the ends of my darker-than-T&A’s-platinum-blonde hair. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, sure. You’re not a brunette or anything, but are you actually even blonde these days unless it’s platinum?”

  “Um…”

  “Everyone knows the difference between born-with-this blonde, and the blonde a woman pays for.”

  Frowning, I sift through my thoughts and try, I swear I try, to understand. “Are you saying—”

  “A woman who maintains herself is always going to stand out over someone who just so happened to be born with blonde highlights.”

  “Er… well… okay. I’m glad we had this tal—”

  “You won’t get the job, you know?” T&A on my left snarls when her shot at my hair didn’t make me cry. “You have less chance than the bitch on the end.”

  Following their gazes, I glance toward the end of the row of seats to find a woman not too dissimilar from these two.

  “She paid for her blonde too,” I observe. “I don’t say that to be unkind, but it needs to be mentioned.” Sitting back again, I cross my left leg over the right. “And since we’re on the topic, what on earth has hair got to do with any of this?”

  “First of all,” Righty grumbles. “Sure, Cheri pays for her blonde, but it’s terrible. Her stylist hasn’t got a lick of style, and anyone with a pair of eyes knows that. And second, this practice isn’t looking for someone smart.” She studies her nails. “They’re looking for someone to fetch coffee for the doctor, to look pretty for the clients, and to provide him with a date whenever he needs one.”

  “Him who? Who are you talking about?” I study the rest of the waiting room. The bevy of blondes, then the formidable Martha. Somehow, I’ve been dragged into this conversation, and I have no clue how to get out again. “I swear I’m not judging anyone by their looks—”

  “Obviously,” Tits&Ass on my right simpers. “It would be ridiculous for you to try.”

  My brows pull close at her petty jab. “My point is that Martha is the current assistant, and I doubt very much she pays for her hair.”

  “Martha is old business,” T&A murmurs in reply, as though as adequately afraid of the woman as I am. “She’s probably related to him or something. But now that she’s out, he’s gonna be looking for fresh blood and long legs.”

  “He is?” I look between the women who flank me. Creamy flesh, long digits, and subtle muscles in their calves. “Remind me again what any of this has to do with answering phones and booking dogs in to have their testicles removed?”

  “Heh,” T&A on the left sniggers. “She really is going for the ditzy play. Good luck, girl. But it ain’t gonna get you over the line.”

  “Okay, well…” Unwilling to continue this discussion, I whip my magazine open and cross my legs the other way. “Good luck with your interview. I mean that.” I meet T&A on the left’s eyes, then T&A on the right. “Truly, I do. Give it your best. Whoever gets the position is clearly the better person.”

  Smug with my degree and the knowledge that I’m well and truly overqualified for this position, I settle in and read an article about the British royal family and the many dogs they’ve owned over the last hundred years.

  As each new woman is called—long legs, short skirt, and the bottle kind of blonde hair—I immerse myself in the gossip of a family I’ve never met, a family I have no intention of researching once I’m out of this office and changed into an outfit that doesn’t cling to my skin.

  An hour passes in the reception area that runs much too cold for comfort. The seats are hardened plastic, the magazine selection is abysmal, and the catty women talking about, and placing bets on, each other are exhausting. But I stay and await my turn.

  I re-cross my legs at the two-hour mark, when my bladder demands attention. Another thirty minutes later, the clock clicks over to eleven thirty, and a hot rage bubbles through my blood when T&A from my left re-emerges from the back office with a rosy blush warming her cheeks and a confident grin stretching her face.

  She’s smug and sauntering, and the fact I’m still waiting enrages me.

  I was early! I was here long before anyone else. But one terribly timed coffee means I’ve been tossed to the back of the line and made to wait until my bladder damn near bursts.

  Tits&Ass on my right is the only candidate left waiting besides me, so when her clone pal from my left leaves through the lipstick-smeared front door, Righty jumps to her feet and sashays her way toward her interview.

  The reception area is completely empty but for me and a wall covered with “unchewable” dog leashes. Martha is nowhere to be found, and though I use my alone time to study the room in search of a toilet, I don’t dare stand up and lose my spot in the interview line.

  My bladder throbs with what coffee I did get to consume this morning, and though it’s still early, my stomach rumbles with hunger.

  Nevertheless, I stay put. If I so much as sneeze and shut my eyes, no doubt Lakeside will skim over my name on the list, and I’ll have forfeited my place in line.

  As the one and only veterinary clinic in this town, it surprises me that no animals or pet owners have wandered in over the course of the entire morning. Though I guess a skilled administrator would know to schedule appointments around a morning of beautiful women vying to be crowned Miss Assistant.

  Finally, a few minutes before noon, T&A from my right steps into the hallway amid giggling laughter and way too much padding in her push-up bra. She continues to speak loudly, her words echoing in the otherwise empty space, and for the first time today, a deep voice follows.

  Whoever he is, he’s remained in the back the whole morning, leaving Martha to sort and shuffle his job applicants, but this time, he escorts the bottle-blonde babe out with a hand on the small of her back. They emerge from the hall and into the main area, which is about twenty feet wide by twenty feet long, and his eyes remain on her… tits.

  He’s tall, an easy foot taller than the woman he salivates over. His dark hair is worn just a week or two past haircut-length, and a neatly trimmed five o’clock shadow stretches over his jaw and down to his neck.

  His presence now answers a whole lot of questions that’ve formed in my mind in the last few hours.

  It all makes so much sense now.

  “I’m so excited to start, Dr. Rosa.” Righty rubs all over the guy in the world’s least professional manner. “Monday at nine?”

  “Yep.” Dr. Rosa flashes the kind of grin that is absolutely, without a doubt, completely and utterly the sole reason he had a waiting room filled to the brim with airheads. Add in that he’s an easy two hundred pounds of I-go-to-Planet-Fitness muscle, wrapped in a suit that was t
ailored just for him instead of the scrubs he should be wearing to work, and everything becomes clearer in my mind. “Monday at nine,” he confirms. “I look forward to working with you, Carmel.”

  “And I you, doctor.” She rubs his bicep and flutters her lashes, then she turns away and gives him a full view of an ass that even I’m somewhat jealous of.

  Carmel, formerly known as T&A, shoots me an I-told-you-so-you-stuck-up-bitch look that burns me where I sit, then with a flip of her hair, she leaves through the same door my smeared lipstick remains on.

  With that, Dr. Beckett Rosa—his name, according to the business cards on Martha’s desk—turns away and stops behind her deserted post. He doesn’t see me. Doesn’t notice me. He folds at the waist and taps away at his receptionist’s computer, and when the phone trills, he picks it up without thought.

  “Lakeside Animal Hospital. You’ve got Beck,” he mumbles.

  “Um…” I grab my briefcase from the floor and slowly rise from my seat. My pulse races, because it’s my turn. After a shitstorm of a morning, exploding coffee, a destroyed shirt, and what may be a dislocated nose, it’s finally my turn to meet the boss and secure the job I’ve been thinking about for weeks.

  So why the hell doesn’t he notice me here? Why has he completely ignored my existence? And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he already offer the job to Carmel?

  Without even seeing me!

  “If she’s not shittin’ in her litter box, then that makes me think she has a UTI. Stress? Have you changed her diet recently?”

  He stops again to listen to his caller. No longer tapping at the computer, Dr. Rosa leans his hip on Martha’s desk and folds his arms across his broad chest. “Is she eating as much as normal, Andi?” He pauses and waits for her answer. “Uh-huh. Yeah. No, I don’t think it’s anything terrible. She’s just a stupid pig.”

  He chuckles when his caller shouts something in his ear. “Bring her in. I’ll take a look.” He checks his wristwatch, then adds, “I’m heading out to get some lunch. I’ll be back by one, so you can bring her in any time after that. I have a couple other clients today, but it’s an easy day, so I’ll slot you in. Yeah.”

  I watch on as his jaw quivers with repressed laughter. Then as he gives up on holding it back, and barks out a loud guffaw.

  “Bring him too. He has no leg to stand on.” He giggles. “You get it? Because you’re married to a— Because he’s an— You totally laughed! Stop playin’, Cruz.”

  He chuckles and waits while his caller speaks. “Okay, I’ll see you in a bit. Bring me a double shot espresso, and I won’t even charge you for Nacho’s workup.”

  Hanging up with a grin and a shake of his head, Dr. Rosa turns away from the phone, away from me as I stand in invisible silence, then he moves into the hall, toward wherever he’s been hiding all morning.

  Sensing my opportunity, slim as it may be, I dart around the desk and skid into the hall. “Excuse me?” I catch sight of him just a few feet before he would slide through a doorway. “Hey!” I shout at his back. “Excuse me?”

  As though startled by my presence, Beckett spins at the doorway and studies me without even pretending he has manners. His eyes start at my feet and skim along my thighs. He quirks a brow somewhere around my coffee stain, and lingers a little longer at my chest.

  Pasting on a fake PR smile, he allows his eyes to come up and meet mine. “Hello?” He steps back along the hall in that suit that implies a black-tie event, and not a day at the office where fur will cover it within the first appointment. “Er, hi.” He steps forward and drops his hands into his pockets. “We’re not interested in a new insurance policy, our telephone contracts are already cheap, and our internet provider is sub-par, which is exactly what I’d expect to get, for what we pay. Can you, uh…” He nods over my shoulder. “Can you find your own way out? I was just heading—”

  “To lunch,” I answer. “Yeah, I know.” Opening my briefcase with quick hands, I whip out my resume and thrust it forward. “I’m Tabitha Lawrence, and I was supposed to be interviewed today for the position you have in reception.”

  “Oh?” Beckett accepts my papers and folds them without taking a single peek. “I thought I was all done.”

  “Evidently not.” I stand taller and broaden my shoulders. “I’ve been here since nine. In fact, I first arrived at a little past seven-thirty. But a dropped coffee meant I was shuffled to the back of the queue. Now I’m here for my interview.”

  “But I’m done…” he pushes. “I counted them out.”

  “So either you counted wrong, or your current receptionist gave you the wrong number. Either way, here I am. I’d appreciate your time.”

  “I already gave the job to someone else.” He flashes a megawatt grin and points over my shoulder once more. “Carmel. She was very much suited to the position.”

  My brows come close together and form a line that will haunt me into old age. “Hm. I’m sure she’s flexible enough to fulfill many positions, Mr. Rosa. But I feel the need to press once more; here I am, I’ve been waiting all morning, and you giving the position to someone before completing all interviews reeks of unprofessionalism.”

  “Well, unprofessional is my middle name.” He reaches around and mindlessly stuffs my resume in his back pocket. “The position has been filled, Miss…” He pauses, then grits his teeth. “Laramie?”

  I snarl, “Lawrence.”

  “Right.” He grins. “Besides, I doubt you’d want to work for someone as unprofessional as me, anyway.”

  “On the contrary,” I growl through gritted teeth. “I continue to stand here, discussing the position at hand. That would imply—”

  “Implications aside,” he pushes back. “The position has been filled. And it’s Dr. Rosa. ‘Mr.’ seems so layman, Miss Lawrence.”

  “Then you may call me Dr. Lawrence,” I bark. “Since we’re playing that game.”

  At that, Beckett’s brows wing up. “Doctor?”

  “Read the damn resume! I emailed it to your office four separate times in the last month, and just in case you can’t find those, check your frickin’ pocket. My experience and education are right there, typed in Garamond, point eleven.”

  Curious but somewhat mad about it, Beckett reaches back and rescues my resume. Then snapping the paper flat, he skims the first few lines. “You’re twenty-four years old?”

  “Twenty-five. And not at all what I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “How are you twenty-five but have a doctorate?” He cocks a hip as though to say he sees through my lies. “That’s not enough time.”

  “It’s actually plenty of time. In fact, it was so much time that I took a year off to travel when I was twenty-one, and again when I was twenty-three, when my mother passed and I needed time to help my sister organize the estate.”

  “Two years off school?” He shakes his head. “Nope. I’m callin’ shenanigans. And ya know what, Miss Lawrence? Your shenanigans suck. You’re asking for the administrator job, not to become a doctor yourself. If you were gonna fabricate a resume, you should’ve stuck to a business course at the local community college.”

  “Is that what Carmel has?” I demand viciously. “Does it make you feel superior to only hire brainless bimbos?”

  “That’s offensive! What the hell is your problem?”

  “You’re offensive! I had an invitation to interview here today. I dressed the part, I showed up early, I sat around for two hours longer than I should have, I had to listen to your bimbos mash two brain cells together just so they could hold a conversation that didn’t include grunting, and now you’re dismissing me before letting me speak.”

  “I heard you speak,” Rosa’s temper frays. “I genuinely apologize for the mix-up with the interview times, but the fact is, the position has been filled, and even if it wasn’t, I’m not sure you’d fit in here.”

  “Why?” I challenge. “Because I’ve done my buttons up? Because I came here wearing clothes for work, and not for ho
oking?”

  I take a step forward, demand my space, demand his attention. “I see now, Mr. Rosa, why your waiting room was packed with the types it was. You’re not looking for someone to do the work. You’re looking for a showpiece, a woman to look at, and when you both work late at night, someone to touch. But let me tell you something. A few months from now, you’ll be looking for a lawyer, because the bimbo will be sick of the nine-to-five lifestyle, and she’ll want out. And why wouldn’t she file a sexual harassment claim? It’s free money, and the truth of it is, you probably will harass her while on the job.”

  Beckett throws a hand up and turns away. “You may leave, Miss Lawrence. If you see Martha on the way out, she’ll get you a coupon for the local coffee shop to replace the coffee you’re wearing on your shirt.”

  “Martha isn’t at her desk,” I taunt. “She’s already walked off the job.”

  “Good lord.” He stops and exhales a frustrated breath toward the ceiling. “She’s probably at lunch, then. We have your email, Miss Lawrence. I’ll have Martha send your gift voucher when she gets back to work.”

  “Hell you will.”

  I snarl when Beckett walks away and lopes through a doorway, closing me out—rude mothereffing jerkwad—and though I wait in the hall for a few minutes more, he doesn’t come back out, despite his plans for lunch.

  Perhaps there’s a back entrance. In fact, the chances of such are high. Which means I’m shit out of luck, I don’t have the job, and the T&As were right all along; I stood no chance.

  Turning with a huff and passing a poster of the insides of a fully grown horse, I take my cell from my briefcase and sigh at the text messages that await me: three from Jen, asking how the interview went, and one from Mark; same question, and expecting a response in the affirmative.

  I shoot off a text to my sister first, and let her know I crashed and burned. She won’t need more information than that to know she needs to bring the Ben & Jerry’s tonight. Then I open Mark’s text and begin typing: Hey babe, I didn’t get the job. Which works out in the end, I guess, since the boss is a bit of a jackass. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home. Love you.