The problem was, of course, that Bo wasn’t about to release the cat just because he was starting to pass out. The dumb cat had gotten in Bo’s way. Why did people never learn not to get in the way of those with true drive or focus? It amazed her.

What Toni assumed was the fiancée he’d been so desperate to get to now tried to pry Bo’s arms off the cat while begging him to “Let go, Bo! Please!”

But Novikov wouldn’t hear pleas. He wouldn’t hear begging. A man like Bo Novikov would only hear one thing . . .

“You’re late, Bo.”

Bo turned his head to look at Toni while keeping his grip strong. “What?”

“You’re late. For our meeting.”

“I’m never late,” he snarled. “And what meeting?”

“To go over promotion ideas for you? Remember?”

“There’s nothing to remember because we didn’t have a meeting.”

“We did,” Toni said, moving around so that she stood right in front of him with Kerri behind her. With her hand behind her back, Toni signaled to her assistant with her fingers. “I set it up first thing this morning.”

“We did not have a meeting.” He glowered at her. “I know when I have meetings.”

“It’s on your schedule.”

“I know my schedule. We didn’t have a meeting.”

“I’m not talking your personal schedule, Bo. I don’t have access to that. So I had schedules set up and sent to the entire team’s phones.”

Leaning around Toni, Kerri held up her tablet and said, “See? It’s right here.”

“I didn’t get anything on my phone.”

“Really? I sent you a follow-up e-mail.” Christ, she was really rolling with this lie of hers, but the lion was starting to turn blue. Seriously. Blue.

“I don’t get e-mail on my phone.”

“You can’t get e-mail or you don’t?”

“I guess I never set it up when the team got our new phones. But why should I bother? Malone calls when she wants to talk to me.”

“I have a lot to do and I need to be able to get in touch with you the easiest way possible. That way I can also send you travel info and if there’s a problem you can see it right away and get back to me so I can correct it.”

“Planning to make a lot of mistakes, are you?”

“No. I just assume others will fuck up, so I build in padding for that so I’ll have time to fix the problem myself.”

That was not the answer he’d expected, but she could see he was impressed. Not that he’d admit it.

“The phone buzzing all the time bothers me during training.”

“You don’t need to look at it during your training. You need to look at it whenyou’re done with your training. You also need to check out your team schedule, which should coordinate with your personal schedule. Right? This is about team business, after all.” She tapped the watch on her wrist. “And you’re late.”

The hybrid’s really big body suddenly loosened up, and he finally released his prey, the cat dropping to the floor while he coughed and slowly got his overly tan color back.

“Why don’t you go wait in my office, Bo.”

“Yeah. Okay. This can’t take long, though. I’ve got—”

“Training. I know. But then, you should have been on time, huh?”

His eyes narrowed, but he headed toward her office. Then he stopped, turned, and kicked the cat so that the lion flew several feet, before walking off down the hall.

Kerri let out a breath. “Do you want me to—”

“Yeah.”

“For—”

“Yeah. For today.”

“Even the second string guys?”

“No. But give me their names. Maybe I’ll have a meeting with all of them at once.”

Kerri grinned and did a little dance, before running down the hall. Toni knew why the full-human was so happy, but none of this meant that Toni had changed her mind. She was just helping out. Especially with Ulrich out of town for a while.

Goddammit! She was just being a good person!

“Wow,” Bo’s fiancée said while she gawked at Toni. “You were amazing. The way you handled him. You didn’t even try to separate them.”

Toni frowned. “Why the hell would I try to separate two apex predators?”

The wolfdog shrugged. “I do.”

Deciding that answer meant the wolfdog was either kind of stupid or kind of dangerously insane, Toni turned away from her and focused on the cat.

“I’m Blayne by the way. Bo’s fiancée.”

Toni nodded but basically stopped thinking about the wolfdog. “Are you okay?” she asked the cat. He was slowly pushing himself back to his feet.

“That asshole is crazy,” he choked out, his throat already beginning to bruise where Novikov had gripped him.

“I’d strongly suggest you not bother Mr. Novikov. He doesn’t like it.”

Now standing at his full height of about six-four or -five, the lion stared down at Toni. His nostrils twitched and his eyes immediately narrowed once he’d figured out she was canine.

“Look,” he began, his tone completely condescending, “sweetheart—”

“And we’re done.” Toni walked away from the cat, heading to her office. She simply didn’t have time for stupid, and anyone who called her “sweetheart” without knowing her was just rude.