Page 7 of Shark’s Edge

Dammit . . .

I really liked coleslaw.

Chapter Two

Sebastian

Two hours. Two goddamn hours into the day and my brain felt like it was splitting along the corpus callosum into its two equal halves.

The collection of oversize monitors on my desk displayed different news channels’ coverage from outside my own building. Overly dramatic talking heads were spouting facts and less-than-facts about a woman who threw herself from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro before dawn. Somehow, my name was being dragged into the fiasco, and now the bloodhounds were sniffing and yipping at my front door, looking for an exclusive scoop.

A sharp knock on my office door barely sounded above the helicopters that droned overhead.

“Terryn! I told you, I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

I had to give my assistant a bit of credit. She’d lasted longer than all the others. We might even see the full turn of a calendar at this pace.

“Sorry to let you down, boss man. Not Terryn.” Grant Twombley strode into my office and quietly closed the door behind him. My best friend—hell, my only friend—had a grin on his face that was completely out of place considering the media hailstorm swirling around the building.

“I hate when you call me that.” I stabbed at the keyboard to bring up a different news outlet on one of the screens.

“Precisely why I say it.” He chuckled, his grin growing impossibly wider.

“What can I do for you, Grant? I’m a little busy, in case you haven’t noticed.” I motioned with a huff toward the monitors on my desk and then to the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the far side of my expansive penthouse office.

“You’d have to be unconscious not to notice the chaos in here today, my man. What have you gotten yourself into this time?” He rubbed at his chin with his thumb and index finger, looking at me with open skepticism.

“This is complete bullshit. I didn’t even know this . . . this . . . ” I thought better of calling a recently deceased woman the derogatory term that came to mind. Even a bastard like me knew that would be in poor taste.

“Way to rein it in, Bas. Charm school is finally paying off.” Of course Grant didn’t miss my self-edit.

“Fuck off,” I muttered again, not bothering to spare him my true feelings. He’d seen me at my highest highs and my lowest lows. We’d grown up together on the streets of the east side of LA and had each other’s backs more times than either of us cared to remember. Our friendship was beyond brother-deep.

“Seriously though, my friend. What’s the story here? Before the legal team assembles. You must have really done a number on this one.” He flopped down onto one of three black leather sofas that were arranged in a perfect U shape in the sitting area of my suite.

Just as he stretched his long legs out to prop them on the table in front of him, I stood and scolded, “Keep your nasty feet off my furniture. Do you do that at your own house?”

“Actually, I do. Why do we go through this every time I’m in here? You’re worse than a nagging wife.” He planted his feet on the floor and sat farther back into the deep cushion. At six feet six, it was hard for the man to sit comfortably on most furniture, but that was hardly my concern.

“Because if Pia saw you putting your feet on that table or sofa”—I stabbed my finger at each piece as I lectured—“or anything other than the floor, she would serve us both our balls for lunch.”

Grant held up his hands in surrender. “Enough said. Enough said. But speaking of lunch, when does the little redhead scurry by? I’m starving.”

“Those are Terryn things. Not Shark things.”

“Nice try. And we’re talking about ourselves in the third person now? How dictatorial asshole of you.”

I leveled my stare at him to convey explain.

“I see the way you sneak in gawks at that catering girl’s ass.”

“I do no such—”

“Cut the shit.” Only Grant could get away with such rudeness and live to do it a second time. He stood and walked over to my desk. “This is me you’re talking to. The same guy you confessed your crush on Miss Dandelion to when we were in the third grade, remember?”

“Yeah.” I let out a sigh, remembering our heavenly third-grade teacher. “But her tits . . . ”

“They were stellar tits.”