Ricky had his head back and was staring up at the ceiling. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be. He was a strong, confident wolf who’d traveled the world. And yet he couldn’t seem to come up with any way to get these two She-wolves out of his office.

Ronnie was still talking, practically in tears, while Sissy Mae did that annoying repeating thing.

“I know you’re trying to get over this,” Ronnie Lee said.

“Trying so hard,” Sissy agreed.

“That you’re pretending her being here doesn’t bother you.”

“Pretending. Such pretending.”

“But we’re here for you.”

“We are so here for you.”

Just when Ricky was entertaining the idea of jumping out the window, there was a short knock at the door, and without waiting for an answer, Rory pushed it open.

“Hey, Ricky, I need you to—”

A job folder in his hands, Rory stopped mid-step, his gaze bouncing back and forth between Ronnie and Sissy.

“What are y’all doin’?”

Ronnie put her hand on Ricky’s shoulder. “Just talking to my brother. Is that all right with you?”

Rory lowered the folder. “Tell me you two aren’t still going on about Laura Jane.”

“Well, it’s not like you care, Rory Lee!”

“Because I don’t care! Neither does this idiot!” Rory stomped over to Ricky, grabbed his forearm, and yanked him out of the chair. “Now if you don’t mind, we have actual work to do.” Rory shoved the folder into his hand. “This client is having a problem with his system. Go take a look at it.”

Practically running, Ricky headed out of his office. “I’m on it!”

“This conversation isn’t over, Ricky Lee!” Ronnie yelled after him. “You’re going to have to face this at some point!”

Inside the elevator, Ricky gave a quick wave to a still giggling Mindy while he rammed the first-floor button until the doors closed. Then he let out a breath and said, “Not if I can help it.”

Toni sat at her giant mahogany desk with the state-of-the-art computer system, three HD monitors—why she’d need more than one monitor, she didn’t know—and her ergonomically designed leather executive chair. She sat and she silently freaked out.

It was a gift she had, silently freaking out. Most people, especially her family, did it loudly with much crying and yelling. Using the excuse of being artists, they were always very emotional, but Toni could never afford to do that. Someone in her family had to at least appear calm and rational.

This was true even if she were a total and complete mess. As Toni currently was at the moment. And she had been for the last three hours, through lunch, and several phone meetings, while she sat ather fancy new desk and silently freaked out.

“Hi, boss!” Kerri said as she walked into the office. She’d quickly become familiar, something Toni normally didn’t mind. But she hated that Kerri kept calling her “boss.” She wasn’t a boss. She’d never be a boss. At least not a good one.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you earlier. Mr. Van Holtz is out of the office for a few weeks, but he handpicked me and didn’t want you to be fooled by my extremely perky nature and tendency to tell too much information about myself. He says that I’m really good at what I do and disgustingly loyal. He thinks we’ll get along great—and so do I!”

She sat in the chair across from Toni. “So, now that we have a few minutes, let’s discuss my role.” She flipped open the top of the leather folio she had in her hand, the PC tablet fired up and ready for her notes. “What do you need from me?”

Toni sat and stared at the woman, her eyes wide.

“Ma’am?”

“I can’t do this,” Toni finally admitted. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t belong here.” Toni jumped to her feet. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Go? Now? But Miss Jean-Louis—”

“I just . . . yeah.”

Swinging her backpack over one shoulder, Toni walked out of her office, down the hall, and to the elevator. As the elevator headed up, she began to write her resignation letter in her head.

Of all her bad ideas, taking this job had been the worst. But that was okay. She’d be fixing that as soon as she got home. She just had to get out of here first.

Ricky really did love rich people. Why? Because they paid for everything. Things that the rest of the world thought nothing of doing themselves, the rich insisted on hiring other people to do for them. For instance . . . rebooting the monitoring system. What did rebooting entail? Pressing the restart key on the PC keyboard until the system restarted. That was it. Then everything would start up again and go back online.

The owner of this system knew that information. It was something the company always told all of their clients. Information many of them appreciated and used. But the richer the client, the less they seemed to want to help themselves. Especially the clients who were born into their wealth. They were so used to others doing for them that even the simplest task required a staff.

But Ricky didn’t care about any of that because he’d just earned his company a little extra cash by rebooting a computer, double-checking that the cameras were working, and chatting up a client for an hour or so, something Ricky didn’t mind doing. He enjoyed talking to people even when they had nothing in common. You just never knew what you might learn from talking to strangers.