Cat on the Fence (2 page)

Rao didn’t know about the Cat. Or about Weres or shape-shifters
at all, like most normal humans. Even if their existence was a broadly known
and accepted fact, Karabi wasn’t so sure that Rao would have been able to deal
with the knowledge. So what made her think she could have a serious long-term
relationship with this man if she couldn’t reveal to him half of her true self?
And since she had absolutely no intention whatsoever of
ever
dating a
Were again, chances were high she’d never settle down with anyone at all.
Perhaps it was obvious that she was meant to be a cheetah running solo.

She darted around the apartment several times, growling,
leaping over furniture, intentionally knocking over the pile of mail on the
counter and the aloe plant Rao had brought over. When she encountered the silk
scarf he had given her last week at Christmas she tore into it with her large
claws, shredding it to pieces.

Before she could inflict any more damage to her apartment,
she ran into the bathroom. There she took her claws to the shower curtains that
she’d been planning to take down anyway. Digging her claws deep into the
fabric, pulling them downward, feeling the material rip and give underneath her
was a rush and a comfort at the same time.

With all of that tension now worked out of her, Karabi ended
her kitty-fit and shifted back to human form. She went and got her favorite
pair of warm and fuzzy leopard-print pajamas and crawled into bed, feeling much
better.

She’d forgotten how good it felt to let the Cat out of its
cage.

Karabi sat at the conference table with her arms folded. The
two other seated staff members were listening casually to the speaker at the
front of the room, occasionally nodding in agreement. But as far as Karabi was
concerned, the man speaking was full of it. It had been two weeks since the
breakup with Rao and Karabi had only just started to get over the emotional
turmoil that interaction had caused her. Now here was another man—whom she’d
just met and didn’t even know yet—who was getting fully under her skin.

Alexander McClellan was his name. And he was dangerous. He’d
just been contracted as financial analysis consultant and was on the Operations
Team for one quarter. As far as Karabi could tell, it was going to be a long,
painful three months. From the moment he opened his mouth she knew he was
trouble. This guy had the kind of amazing voice that was so seductive it made
all of his ideas sound good, even his shitty ones. Kevin Green the operations manager
and everyone else on the staff might have fallen for his charm and slick tongue
but Karabi wasn’t going to. So what if he was kind of nice to look at. Scratch
that—
very
nice. A lion was pretty to look at too but it still might bite
her head off if she wasn’t careful when she entered its cage.

Two of the lionesses in the Big Cat House at the zoo where
she worked had each recently birthed a trio of rambunctious little cubs but
last week the male lion, Musaka, got a bit too rough with one and severely
injured him. The mother quickly punished the large male—with fatal intent
likely, had zookeepers not intervened as quickly as they did—leaving the zoo
with
two
injured cats. Musaka was healthy and strong and his injuries
would heal relatively quickly and easily but the cub, Kimba, needed intense
specialized care around the clock. All of which would cost money the facility
didn’t have funding for. On top of the medical expenses was the fact that the
habitat now had six new animals, meaning the already-strained budget was
looking especially bleak.

So they’d hired this guy to come in and try to tackle their
urgent financial quandary. If Alex did a good job and the staff liked him, they
were going to offer him a permanent position on the team. But Karabi wasn’t so
sure he could see past dollar signs long enough to notice that there were
living, breathing animals in the zoo. At this moment he was talking about staff
cuts, which had Karabi grinding her teeth.

“I’ve looked at the headcount, expenditures and revenue per
exhibit, and have come up with a potential plan to rebalance the staff based on
where the activity and income is at. The Big Cat House is one of the most
profitable departments here, and should therefore have the lion’s share—excuse
the pun—of the budget. By halving the staff in the Small Mammal and Reptile House
and reducing the Waterfowl Lagoon budget by a third, we’d be able to cover all
identified cat expenses and still have some leftover for unexpected overages.”

“Except that would put good people out of work in a tough
economy,” Karabi said with a pointed expression on her face. “Not to mention it
would undermine the quality of care for the animals at both of those exhibits.”

Alex turned his focus to her, his posture remaining straight
and self-assured. “Job cuts happen in a tough economy. It’s to be expected. And
spending less doesn’t necessarily have to mean providing less. I have
confidence that the staff here is fantastic at what they do and are fully
capable of coming up with a plan to continue to provide quality care even with
a lower budget.”

Karabi shook her head. “All the brilliant planning in the
world couldn’t make up for a shortage of personnel.”

“Sure it could. Corporations around the globe do it every
day.”

“But this is not a corporation. It’s a not-for-profit
institution.”

“Being not-for-profit doesn’t exclude you from needing to
care about the bottom line. You could go bankrupt if you don’t run this place
like a successful business.”

“We’d go
morally
bankrupt, however, if we ran this
place like most businesses do.”

He paused for a moment. Then a strange smile formed on his
face. “I understand, um, what was your name again?”

“Karabi. Karabi Minstry.”

“Right, Karabi. I understand that you’re passionate about
keeping the family together.”

She fidgeted in her chair uncomfortably. Something about the
way Alex said her name, the way he was eyeing her as he said the word
passionate
…
Images of the two of them having hot, intense sex in various positions on the
boardroom table flashed in her mind. Karabi gave a slight shake of her head and
a quick cough to clear her thoughts. “I am.”

He nodded. “I respect that. I have an alternative. We could
raise the money through a charity event. Don’t you guys raise close to a
million at your annual fundraiser dances? You’d only need a fraction of that to
stay in the black.”

“The Zoo Ball won’t happen until the summer.”

“Right, and the targeted proceeds for this summer’s ball have
already been earmarked for research and foundation donations. But I’m talking
about hosting a different one. Next month, with a Valentine’s Day theme,
specifically for this cause.”

“In just a month? How would we do that? It’s way too cold to
put out a tent, and there’s no building here really suitable for a big indoor
party.”

“We could rent out The Loft in Willis Tower.”

“You mean the Sears Tower?” Karabi hated that they’d changed
the name of the building, which was once officially the tallest building in the
world and known worldwide for decades as Sears Tower, to Willis Tower. And so
she, like many other Chicagoans, refused to call it anything other than its
original name. No matter
who
bought it and took it over.

“That’s expensive. It’d be at least a few grand just to rent
the place out.”

“I already did the math. If we charge a premium for the
tickets and we get even a quarter of the turnout you get on average from your
events, we’d bring in close to ten times what we pay for it.”

Karabi wrinkled her nose. “What kind of zoo throws a
high-priced, fancy fundraiser at the top of a high-rise building?”

“The kind of zoo with two injured lions, desperately needing
cash for their care.”

She rolled her eyes. Just the thought of getting all dolled up
and attending a party full of uppity pretension and expensive eveningwear left
a nasty taste in her mouth. Sure, Mr. Fancy-Suit would be more than happy to
attend some bourgeois ball. With his perfectly tailored suit and shirt,
spit-shined shoes and two-hundred-dollar watch. Even his wavy brown hair was
neatly combed, unlike most of the men and women who worked there. His gruff,
extended goatee and mustache seemed almost out of place on him. Karabi wondered
if he intentionally left it a bit on the scruffy side to make it appear as if
he didn’t care all that much about his appearance. If he did, Karabi wasn’t
buying it. No way this guy, who dressed as if he were coming in for a TV
interview rather than a meeting at the zoo, would leave his facial hair
unintentionally ungroomed. He had to know it softened his otherwise
unapproachable and high-strung movie-star appearance. Drew attention to his
bright, piercing blue-gray eyes. She wanted to rub her hand against the
stubble, to feel its roughness against her skin. Next thing she knew she was
imagining grabbing Alex by the tie and pulling him down on top of her, onto the
tabletop, and anxiously unbuckling his pants.

Wait, where did that thought come from? She shook her head
as if to rid herself of fleas. “No, an impromptu fundraiser should be a last
resort.”

He sighed and rubbed at his face. “Okay then, no people cuts
and no fundraisers. We could sell off the healthy cubs and increase your bottom
line this quarter by up to thirty percent.”

Karabi’s stomach churned at the word
sell
. “We only
trade animals. We don’t sell them.”

“Not even for a thirty percent profit increase?”

“Again, we’re not-for-profit. What we need is better
budgeting, not bigger profits.”

He gave a hearty chuckle—a deep, rolling sound that was
chock-full of belittlement but still somehow laced with masculine charm and
appeal. “It’s quite obvious, Miss Minstry, that finance isn’t your expertise.
But that’s okay, I’m willing to take the time to break it all down for you.
That is after all what I’m here for.”

“That’s great,” Karabi said, her voice dripping with
sarcasm. “Some of us are here for the animals.”

“So I see,” Alex said. He bent toward the table and wrote
something down in his notebook. “Salary reviews are coming up next week. I’ll
keep that in mind when we discuss your raise versus those who are here for a
job.”

Karabi opened her mouth and closed it, speechless. It wasn’t
often that she didn’t have a witty comeback. Robert chuckled and she jerked
around in her chair. She’d almost forgotten there were others besides just Alex
and her in the room. She threw her coworker a threatening glare.

“Look, I see you two have some differences to work out,”
Robert said. “Should we call it a day and revisit this tomorrow?”

“I think we could work this out if Karabi and I had a few
more minutes alone to discuss this,” Alex said.

Robert looked back and forth between Karabi and Alex, then
over at Sandra, who had been sitting very quietly at the table. “What are you
thinking?”

“I’m thinking we’re wasting our time here,” the middle-aged
blonde woman said with a shrug. “I vote for whichever of Alex’s plans Karabi
will agree to, since this directly impacts her animals.”

Robert nodded as he gathered up his notes and stood. “Sandra
and I are calling it a day, then. We’re both good with whatever you decide
upon. Try not to kill each other, okay?” He snorted again and shook his head
before he and Sandra left the two of them alone in the conference room.

Karabi and Alex glared at each other.

“You’re making this extremely difficult,” Alex said.

“No, you’re the one making this difficult,” she said,
pointing her finger at him. “I thought you were an expert on managing budgets.
Instead of trying to shake things up here, why can’t you just, you know, manage
the budget? Move some expenses around, find room someplace?”

“That’s impossible without cutting expenses or increasing
revenue.”

“Surely we could find wiggle room.”

“I don’t think you understand just how tight the budget is.”

“There’s always a way to squeeze something in—no matter how
tight—if you think creatively enough.”

He raised an eyebrow at her then twisted his lips to the
side. “The zoo already had a lot of plans for expansion in place, and this
extensive medical and care cost is on top of that. The expense is
huge
.
I understand that youmay have this fairytale notion that it’s easy to
just shove something new, large and unexpected where it’s tight, no matter how
unrealistic that might be. But I’m trying to help ground you in reality so that
you can expand comfortably. You can’t just force it all in without making some
adjustments—it’s just too big. I need you to trust me to show you how to make
this happen with as little pain as possible.”

Her mind immediately went to inappropriate places and she grew
moist and hot in places that were even more inappropriate. Was he taking her
there intentionally? Why was this man affecting her like this? Maybe it had
been too long since she’d had sex. She needed to try to remedy that soon—her
judgment and her libido were off-kilter.

She studied him, trying to figure out what it was that made
her feel so odd. Agitated. Attracted. Apprehensive. Aroused. His demeanor hadn’t
visually changed much but there was something in the way those ensnaring eyes
of his looked at her that made her acutely aware she was alone in a closed-off
room with this guy who seemed to radiate sexual energy. He licked his lips as
he waited for her reply and she couldn’t help but imagine what that tongue of
his would feel like licking
her
lips—both sets. Butterflies filled her
belly and she could almost feel a purr coming on. A
purr
! Out of Karabi!

She swallowed hard and crossed her legs to steel herself.
They needed to reach a compromise, and fast, so she could end this meeting
before she outright pounced on him.

* * * * *

“Let’s hurry up and get this over with,” Karabi said. This
woman was
feisty
.Alex liked them feisty. And she had a presence
that was hard to ignore. It was…enticing. But also distracting.

He’d been working in the zoo’s office for almost two weeks
but this was the first time he’d had the trouble—or the pleasure, maybe, he was
still undecided—of actually interacting with Karabi Minstry. Somehow she was
quickly unravelling the professional poise he’d perfected and had been
maintaining. Up until now.

He absolutely had to regain his footing. He moved to stand
right next to her, attempting to use his height and posture to get her to back
down. Which usually worked. “Okay, look. The easiest thing to do is to just
trade some of the animals. If the cards are played right, you’d be cutting
expenses and bringing in more income.”

But apparently Karabi wasn’t one who intimidated easily. To
his surprise she stood and entered his space with her arms folded and her mouth
in a straight line, meeting his challenge head-on. “We’re not getting rid of
anyone, Mr. McClellan.”

“Any
one
?” He raised both brows. “They’re animals, not
people.”

“So? Some people act like animals, and yet we still call
them some
one
.”

Alex grunted. He was certainly feeling like an animal right
now. What was it about this little zoophile with a big attitude that was
getting to him? It didn’t even make sense. Yes, she was pleasant to look at. A
petite-but-still-curvy Indian woman with olive skin, large doe eyes and slender
facial features. She was an exotic but subtle kind of pretty. Not exactly his
type… But then again he didn’t really have a type. It was odd that of all of
the attractive women he’d encountered since he’d moved to the Chicago area—even
the others who also worked at the zoo—it was this one whom he was instantly
drawn to. Karabi was dressed like an Eskimo or something in a super-thick,
fuzzy turtleneck sweater and dark jeans with frumpy-looking boots. He’d been
there a couple of weeks now and as far as he could tell, every day was Casual
Friday for her. Sure, she worked with animals in a zoo and all but did that
really have to mean she shouldn’t bother to at least
try
not to wear
pants to work that were so worn there were holes beginning to form in the
knees? “Right. Guess I didn’t realize I’d be dealing with such bleeding-heart
animal lovers here.”