Carve My Pumpkin (The Night Realm: Halloween Marked #3)

Chapter 4

FOUR

MATEO

I was suffocating.

When Dennis was my executive assistant I kept my office door wide open. He’d wander in from time to time and we’d chat - both work related and personal. The noises from the first floor desks were the perfect background noise to curb my ADHD while I worked. When my legs got restless I’d meander around the building until I felt settled in my bones again and ready to work. Two of my siblings worked here along with one of my out-laws, Ernald’s husband. Between the three of them and Lex I had lots of people I could go talk to when I needed the energy boost. I was an extrovert who needed time to play with others.

Ms. Rothchild ruined all that.

All of it.

She wasn’t supposed to move to Dennis’ desk yet. She was supposed to wait until the trial period was over. But no, she had to come up into my zone before I was ready for her to be there with all of her female logic. I’d closed my door as soon as I sent her out of my office this morning and I hadn’t opened it since. Even my lunch had been delivered. I hated it. The air in here had long since grown stale and thick. I needed fresh air. I needed noise and conversation with someone other than myself. I was suffocating in here. I was a caged tiger pacing the fence line.

I scrubbed my face with my hands, letting out a rough groan at the same time. Then I pulled my arm back and glanced at my watch. It was nearly twenty minutes after five, twenty minutes after the end of the official work day. Surely, she had to have bailed by now. It was friday, no way a fae girl would be caught dead at work when it was play time. Colette wasn’t anything unlike the other fae girls on the Island, she had to have gone. Quietly, I hurried to my office door. It was silent on the other side. My pulse quickened with excitement.

Finally, I was free from my prison.

I rushed back to my desk to grab my phone and my keys. Then I sprinted back to my office door. I threw it open and charged into the open hallway - and slid to a stop. My breath was sucked right out of my lungs and pinned to the wall with a stake.

Colette was still here.

I clenched my teeth and balled my hands into fists at my sides, trying to stay calm by breathing through my nose. But I felt like a dragon about to exhale my flames. Because Colette wasn’t busy at work. She wasn’t out looking for my soulmate. No, she sat at the desk I hadn’t given her staring into her own reflection on the screen of her computer. She had her little leather bag full of makeup sitting on the desk beside her and her little kitten heels were kicked off with fuzzy socks on in their place. It was like she planned to move in and get comfortable.

Rage rushed through my veins. “Ms. Rothchild, dolling your face for a night out must happen on your time not the company’s,” I snapped and I could’ve sworn I saw smoke billow from my face.

She spun her chair around to face me faster than I thought her possible. “I clocked out twenty-two minutes ago, Mr. Vauntero, despite the fact that this is a work-related conversation?—”

“If you’re working you’re to be doing so on the clock?—”

“ Am I working, Mr. Vauntero? Because I don’t recall soulmate hunter on the job description.” She gestured to her still open screen. “And yet here I am.”

“ Soulmate hunter, ” another female voice mumbled then fell into giggles.

I frowned and took a closer look at her computer screen only to find she was on a video call with two dark-haired females. One of whom was laughing so hard her face had turned red while the other was trying to shut her up.

My stomach tightened into knots. I growled and squeezed my fists even tighter. “My personal business is not for girl talk, Ms. Rothchild?—”

“Since you made it my job you don’t get to dictate whether or not I privately vent about it to my friends?—”

“This isn’t private?—”

“This isn’t girl talk either!” She snapped, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink that made her light green eyes really sparkle. “My God, is this why you haven’t been able to find your soulmate yourself? Must be, if you’re that incapable of using those pretty blue eyes for more than decoration.”

I gasped, my heart was pounding faster than I’d ever felt it before. My hands were now shaking. I didn’t understand my body’s reaction to her yelling at me but it had me feeling all kinds of warm and tingly. “Is this how you speak to all of your bosses, Ms. Rothchild? I highly doubt Lexington would stand for this insubordination.”

She took a deep breath then calmly, and cooly, stated, “Mr. Prescott has never attacked me in a way to warrant self-defense. He respects his employees In his actions, Mr. Vauntero. Perhaps if you looked at my computer screen you’d see

“And this is how you respect me? By telling my business to other people?”

“You literally gave me the single task of locating your soulmate, Mr. Vauntero. To do so, I might have to use the word soulmate to help me in the process. I might have to tell people what I’m doing and why. Surely that can’t be too difficult to understand.” She crossed her arms over her chest and arched one eyebrow, not backing down from me in the slightest bit and that only sent my pulse flying faster. “When giving me said task you simply said to find your soulmate, never in that one sentence did you say to do so in confidence. I wasn’t aware I’d signed an NDA?—”

“Ms. Rothchild?—”

“I am not a liar, Mr. Vauntero.” She held her chin higher which caused the golden lights in the ceiling to light the sharp angles of her pretty face and made her look like a princess in some Renaissance painting. “If you’d like me to continue my hunt secretly, without alerting people to my efforts, then I need you to tell me such right now.”

I took a deep breath through my nose then slowly exhaled through my clenched teeth. “I did not say you had to lie or keep it secret. But some discretion would be appreciated.”

She narrowed her eyes at me then nodded her head once. “I follow orders well, Mr. Vauntero. However, I assure you that Carter Quinn and Ria Demitri can be trusted not to flaunt the knowledge I have given to them today.”

I flinched. My eyebrows rose. “Carter and Ria?”

Then I heard Carter’s voice as she said, “hello Mateo.”

Ria chuckled and waved at me from the screen. “Hey Matty.”

My jaw dropped. My heart stopped.

Colette’s expression turned smug. “I do not believe I have to ask to know that Mr. Prescott’s soulmate can be trusted with anything pertinent to Prescott Tech and its employees, especially those she is offering aide to.”

“ Why didn’t you say that was Carter when ?—”

“Why didn’t you just look ? I did not hide either of their faces from my screen.”

I growled. “Ms. Rothchild?—”

Her computer screen flashed with light and the box with Carter and Ria’s faces reduced in size to fit only half the screen. The other half filled with the face of Lexington Prescott. He leaned into the camera and snarled, “Mateo. My office. NOW.”

The screen went black.

I growled and stormed away from Colette before I found myself in any more trouble than I was about to be. This woman brought out the worst in me. She was infuriating and insufferable. If you’re that incapable of using those pretty blue eyes for more than decoration, she’d said. I grumbled and stomped my way down the hall to Lex’s office.

What the hell does she think I’ve been doing all year? Does she actually think I’ve enjoyed this hunt? This torture? My pretty blue eyes have looked damn near everywhere on this Island to no avail. Well at least she knows my eyes are pretty.

I pushed Lex’s door open without knocking and let it slam shut behind me.

Lex stood up from his chair and held his hand up. “Stop.”

I slid to a stop. I may have been a prince, a realm royal, but I was thirty years old whereas Lex was nearing five hundred. He was my elder, hell he was practically my brother - even more so now that his sister married my brother. I respected the hell out of him. The fact that he’d played witness to my little tiff with Colette made me sick.

With my heart in my throat, I licked my lips and said, “Lex, I’m sorry —”

“Answer me this with a simple yes or no, Mateo.” He arched one eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you give Ms. Rothchild the single task of finding your soulmate for her entire two-week trial period?”

“Look, I have a reason?—”

“ Simple yes or no, Mateo, ” he said with a growl.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, I did.”

He narrowed those eyes that were the same sapphire blue as my own. “In what way does finding your soulmate have anything to do with either of your jobs as ambassadors to this island?”

“It doesn’t in a literal sense.” I pushed my hair back and sighed. “But I cannot leave this Island until I find her otherwise I may miss her. Surely you can understand this?”

He stared at me for a long moment. Long enough to make me squirm a little.

“If my memory serves me correctly then this two-week trial period aims to gauge personalities and how well we can get along. My executive assistant must travel the world with me, we must spend large amounts of time together. We have to get along?—”

“Mateo.” Lex sighed then pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. When he looked back up at me I saw the disappointment in his eyes. “While I understand the predicament you are in, as president of this company I must make one thing abundantly, and blatantly clear.”

“What’s that?”

He aimed his pointed stare at me and I did not miss the threat in his eyes. “You cannot fire Ms. Rothchild if she cannot locate your soulmate. Those are not grounds for relocation as it is not work. And if I hear you’re speaking to her the way I heard just now, then I will make her trial period with you indefinite. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” I growled back.

“Good.” He walked over and sat down in his chair. “Then I suggest you play nice while you abuse your power in this task of hers. That is all.”

I cursed and stormed back out of his office, except this time, I took the side stairs to avoid her all together. It was Friday evening, I’d have all weekend to come to terms with this woman being forced into close proximity to me. If I wanted her gone then I needed to behave so that in two weeks when I told Lex to relocate her far away from me he would actually listen.

Because over my dead body was Colette Rothchild to be my assistant.