TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 317

Three hundred and seventeen

Isabella POV

Payroll was finally over, and the Accounting Department’s mountain of reports was gone. The office felt alive again. People chatted across desks, wandered over to swap stories, and even Emma took Monday off after surviving payroll week. 1.

One of the women had the office laughing with a story about her cousin’s wedding and the possessive mother-in-law who nearly ruined the ceremony because she couldn’t stand another woman “stealing” her son. Across the room, two coworkers argued over who deserved annual leave first. Their voices kept rising, but everyone knew they were playing around, laughing as each insisted their vacation mattered

more.

Harrison dragged an empty chair to my desk and slipped into the chatter like he always did. He bounced from one conversation to another while finishing the last of his work, tossing out jokes before returning to his spreadsheets. I had no idea how he got anything done.

I noticed he went quiet and stared at his monitor, his frown deepening as he read.

“Are you okay?”

He raised a finger, then stood and grabbed his laptop.

“I’ll be back.”

Nearly half an hour passed before he returned.

He dropped into the chair beside me with his laptop tucked under one arm and a thick report under the

other. Angry red pen marks covered almost every page.

“Wesley rejected the monthly expenditure summary,” he said, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear.” He wants the whole thing redone within twenty-four hours.”

“The whole thing?” one of the women asked.

“A document over two hundred pages.”

“But why?”

“He doesn’t like the format.”

People looked at each other.

“But that’s the same format that has always been the department’s standard,” someone else said. “What does he want instead?”

“He didn’t say. He just told me it wasn’t acceptable and that I should redo it.”

I looked down at the report. I wasn’t an accountant, but even I knew this had stopped being about spreadsheets.

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“That doesn’t sound like Wesley,” another colleague muttered. “Besides, Emma checks everything before it leaves this department.”

My stomach knotted.

The cold look he’d given me in Luna Lisa’s office flashed through my mind. He was furious, but instead of taking it out on me, he was taking it out on Harrison.

“Why don’t you tell Emma?” I said.

He did, and Emma answered right away and emailed her the report template while they spoke.

“This is the approved format. What exactly does he want changed?”

“He said he wants a different presentation and that he’d know it when he saw it.”

Emma promised to call him. She hung up and called back later that afternoon. Harrison listened, thanked her, then set his phone on the desk.

“She offered to handle the revisions herself. He refused and insisted I do them personally,” Harrison said to me. “Weren’t you defending him at the club? ‘They may be rich, but they work hard.’ Newsflash, hard work doesn’t stop someone from having a God complex.”

I couldn’t even argue.

“He also said if the next submission is just as careless, maybe they should review whether I belong in this role at all. I’ve never had anyone question my work before.”

Harrison’s reports had always been praised. Emma trusted him with some of the department’s biggest jobs. Watching his confidence crack because of something so petty filled me with guilt.

He buried himself in the revisions and didn’t look up again until the office was empty. One by one, everyone packed their things and left, but he remained at his desk, surrounded by spreadsheets and printed reports covered in corrections. I couldn’t bring myself to leave him behind.

“Why don’t you take it home and finish the rest there?” I asked.

He rubbed his eyes and started gathering the files. I helped him pack everything into his laptop bag, and even after we returned to the staff lodge, the work followed him into his room. After settling Maverick for the night, I came back to find the covered rice and chicken cold beside Harrison. He thanked me absentmindedly, picked up his fork, took a few bites, then pushed the plate away.

I stayed with him and helped however I could. I checked figures against source documents, recalculated totals, and read through pages looking for anything either of us might have missed.

The following morning, Emma was back in the office, much to Harrison’s relief. Before he went to Wesley, she reviewed the report herself, page by page. By the time she finished, she seemed satisfied.

“Maybe he was overwhelmed yesterday and didn’t look at it properly.”

After he left, I couldn’t settle into my work. My attention kept drifting toward the entrance. Every time the

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door opened, I looked up, expecting Harrison to walk back in.

When he finally did, I knew the answer before he said a single word.

He walked straight past me and headed for Emma’s office. A few minutes later, they left for Wesley’s office, and he returned looking more frustrated than ever.

I lowered my eyes to my desk, but the numbers on the page refused to stay in focus.

If Emma couldn’t find fault with the report, then Wesley’s complaints had nothing to do with formatting.

or expenditure summaries. And if I let this continue, Wesley wouldn’t stop until he broke Harrison’s confidence or damaged his career.

There was only one person who could end this.

I kept hesitating over whether to go or not, but I knew I had to do it before the end of the day for Harrison’s sake.

I headed to the restroom to freshen up. After smoothing my blouse, I made my way to Wesley’s office and knocked before pushing the door open.

Wesley sat behind his desk, his attention shifting between the monitor in front of him and the phone

beside it.

The familiar scent of the mate bond wrapped around me the moment I stepped inside. No matter how many times I experienced it, it always seemed stronger than before.

Wesley’s white shirt sleeves were rolled to his forearms, exposing strong, tanned skin, and his hair had grown slightly longer than usual. Somehow it suited him even more.

“Excuse me, sir.”

His eyes lifted to mine. They traveled over me before returning to my face.

“Yes?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Every sentence I’d rehearsed disappeared.

He frowned.

“Are you just going to stand there? As you can tell, I’m busy.”

“I won’t take long.”

I closed the door behind me. When I turned back, he was still watching me and waiting, though he already knew why I’d come and was giving me enough rope to hang myself.

“I… I came to talk about Harrison.”

“Who is Harrison?”

I pointed toward the door.

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“My friend from Accounting. My date at your sister’s event.”

A corner of his mouth lifted.

“So that lazy bum finally decided to plead his own case through you?”

“No. He doesn’t even know I’m here.”

“Then why are you?”

“You rejected his report twice.”

“Then he should take it up with his department head.”

“Emma already did, and you still insisted Harrison redo everything.”

He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, studying me.

“Are you accusing me of doing my job?”

I shook my head.

“No. Far from it. It’s just that for two days now, you’ve made his job impossible.”

He picked up a pen and idly clicked it between his fingers.

“I don’t have time to micromanage people, Isabella. And it’s incredibly unprofessional for you to walk into my office to plead for your boyfriend because he can’t handle revisions. That sounds like a performance problem to me.”

He held my gaze.

“I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

My frustration was beginning to outweigh my caution. Every second I hesitated was another second Harrison carried an unnecessary burden.

“You’ve never cared this much about formatting before.”

He laughed, sounding genuinely amused.

“You’ve done your homework and seem remarkably informed about my management style. And why would I waste my time targeting your boyfriend?”

He stopped laughing.

“Do you think I have time to keep track of who you’re dating when I have an entire pack to run?”

I walked around the desk until I stood in front of him. The arrogance he’d been wearing slipped. I could feel his body go still, and the restrained pull toward me.

He wanted me, and we both knew it.

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I stepped in until his knee brushed my leg. My voice dropped as I looked down at him, letting my gaze linger on his mouth a second too long before meeting his eyes again.

“Please leave him alone. I get that you’re mad at me, but Harrison has nothing to do with this.”

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

Even his voice had lost its earlier irritation, and his eyes searched mine.

“You’re bothered,” I whispered. “Punish me if you want, but don’t punish him.”

His gaze dropped to my lips before returning to my eyes.

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

I leaned forward until my lips barely brushed his. His restraint finally broke. His arms circled my waist, drawing me onto his lap as he kissed me properly, but before the kiss could deepen, I stopped it with my fingers against his lips. My hand slid over the roughness of his stubble.

“What does he have to do with me?” he murmured, his voice rougher than before.

“You know exactly what he has to do with you.”

His hand settled against my back before stopping at my hip.

“I know you want me.”

His grip tightened.

He kissed me again, slower this time, lingering just enough to make it difficult to think. When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against mine.

“You think wanting you means I spend my day obsessing over your relationship?”

“I think you’re angry.”

“If I give you what you want,” I asked softly, “will you leave Harrison alone?”

He smiled. His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“Does your little boyfriend know you’re in my office like this?”

I caught the front of his shirt to keep him close.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

He stopped.

The confusion on his face made me laugh.

“I asked him to pretend.”

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“Why?”

“To keep Anita away.”

He straightened and laughed, the sound filling the office.

“So that’s what all this has been?”

I nodded.

“He does like me,” I admitted. “I asked him to give me time.”

He leaned down to kiss me again. I stopped him with a hand against his chest.

“Promise me you won’t threaten his job anymore.”

He answered against my skin, his words almost lost before he looked at me.

“You know that first report was perfectly fine.”

“I know.”

“So?”

I searched his face.

“Will you leave him alone?”

He smiled despite himself.

“I’ll leave him alone. But don’t keep pushing me away because you think I won’t come after what I want.”

I eased myself off his lap before he could pull me back again. One of the buttons on my blouse had come undone, and I quickly fastened it.

“Where are you going?”

“The last time I checked, this was still an office. HR already overlooked enough. I don’t think I want to test their patience again.”

I slipped out before he could answer.

Walking back down the corridor, I realized I was smiling.

Maybe I could navigate this after all. Wesley would never discover the truth about the bond, but whatever kept pulling him toward me seemed to be enough.

It wasn’t the future I’d imagined, and it certainly wasn’t the future I’d wanted, but after everything my life had become, I found myself wondering if this was simply the role fate had written for me.

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