Ick Factor (Seasons of Revenge, #4)

by Morgan Elizabeth

“Keep telling yourself that, Katrina.” “Kat!” she says like she does just about every day. “Everyone calls me Kat.” “And I call you Katrina,”

“Your father would want you to have someone in your life. He lived for your mother—the sun rose and fell with her in his eyes. He would want that for you.”

My face screws up with the horror I feel, and she laughs, that wild, unhinged laugh I hear all day long from my office. It’s the kind that tells you she doesn’t give a shit about anything, about what people think about her. It’s not practiced or polite or feminine. But it’s all Katrina.

If there’s anything besides her work ethic I’ve ever allowed myself to admit I like about her, it’s her laugh. And I hear it a lot because Katrina likes to laugh.

All day long, the woman laughs at anything and everything. I’ve often wondered before what it’s like to find such joy in the mundane of life.

“She was rambling on about an idea she had for the gala last year, how to add a fundraising aspect, and I looked up at her, and she was smiling. I realized she was joking, picking on me, and . . . I don’t know. Something snapped. I looked up at her and it was like something had shifted and I needed her to be mine. The world stopped spinning for a moment; everything felt hot and cold at the same time.”

“It fills a room. It’s magical. I could have the absolute worst day of my life, hear her laughing at her desk, and instantly feel better. If laughter is medicine, Katrina’s is my cure.”

Fuck that guy. He thinks he’s got this figured out, has me figured out. Warren thinks he’s smarter than Theo, smarter than me, and that might be his first mistake. Underestimating me is always a mistake. Because Theo might want to keep things copacetic, might not want to tell Jeff and the board and the whole world what a piece of scum Warren is in order to play nice, but I’ve never really liked playing nice. No, I’ve always preferred to play dirty when it really mattered because I always play to win. And I’m here to win this war Warren started.

My heels don’t make much noise on the carpet of the office, which is annoying because, in my head, I’m walking toward the meeting room where Warren and Theo and the entire fucking board are gathered like a movie montage before a big battle scene. A woman on a mission. In my head, my chin is tipped high, a small, sneaky smile playing on my lips, my heels clacking in a furious staccato against hardwood, the soundtrack for my revenge.

And then I do the unthinkable. I put a hand flat on his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath my palm before I move to my tiptoes because the man is unbearably tall even in these heels, and I press my lips to his. For a split second, he’s stiff, confused, and probably a bit panicked. I don’t know for sure, seeing as my eyes are closed.

and she rolls her eyes again, reminding me of when I was a kid and my mother told me my eyes would get stuck like that if I didn’t stop. Clearly, that was a lie, or else with the frequency she rolls hers, Katrina’s big brown ones would have been stuck staring at her brain years ago.

The next day, Katrina storms into my office at noon, her face red with anger and irritation. My mind runs through all of the things that could have made her so mad and without thinking twice, I start to match each with a solution, something I could do to counter it. We’re out of the coffee she likes? I’ll send her to the shop down the road or, better yet, go myself. A client is giving her a hard time? We’ll cancel the contract. Maybe Warren said something to her again? Fine, I’ll let her execute the more illegal options on her revenge plan. Her landlord raised her rent? I’ll buy the building.

Usually, I’m not the kind of girl who likes to pit women against each other. It goes against everything I believe in. But sometimes, bitches need to be put in their places.

At the force that is Theodore Carter, Vice President of Catalyst Records, normally all domineering and professional and put together, looking absolutely feral and hungry and on his knees before me.

“Now, you listen to me, Katrina. You’re a brat in the office, you’re a brat in meetings, you’re a brat anywhere else, but when my cock is inside of you, you play nice. You be my good little assistant, and you take it how I’m ready to give it to you.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything I wouldn’t do if you asked me, Kat,”

“I’ve come to learn that if I want you, I have to take all of you, Katrina. And I like every bit of you. You are chaos, and somehow, when you’re around, I like a little bit of chaos.”

God, she’s so fucking gone and she doesn’t even know it. Or doesn’t want to admit it, at the very least.

It’s what she does to me. She warms me, soothes me. When I’m stressed or overwhelmed and feeling lost, all I have to do is look at her, touch her, remind myself she’s real, and it eases. When I pull back from the kiss, her eyes are hooded, but I can see it still. I do the same to her. And that... That is why this isn’t going to end. I’ll be damned if I give that up or if I let her give that up for herself. We both need this, need each other.

At the end of the day, I might not have the position at the company my father built, but I did find the love of my life.”

“Your stuff isn’t clutter. It’s life. Bring your life into my place, Kat.