Rowan’s POV
The tension from the office followed me home like something physical.
I paced my apartment, loosened my tie, poured a drink I didn’t touch, and ended up at the windows staring at a city that had nothing useful to offer me.
Dorian, naturally, chose dinner as the ideal venue for psychological excavation.
“So.” He leaned back in his chair at Giorgio’s, candlelight catching the satisfaction in his expression.
“What do you think about Hadley having a boyfriend?
The way Evangeline was talking, tonight’s dinner plans sounded pretty serious.”
I dragged both hands down my face.
“What does it matter?
I already told you—stay away from her.”
“I’m not the one interested in her.” He swirled his wine with elaborate nonchalance.
“But her boss seems pretty captivated.
And from what I witnessed today, he’s already staking claims.”
My head snapped up.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Rowan.” The smirk was fully deployed.
“I know you better than anyone.
You were locked on Hadley from the moment you saw her.
I watched you pull her against your body and refuse to let go.
You locked that office door with her inside.
When I came back, the air between you could have started a fire.
And don’t insult me by pretending I didn’t see how your eyes followed her down the hall.” He paused for effect.
“So are you going to tell me what happened behind that door, or should I assume the worst?”
“You’re impossible.” But I couldn’t stop the grin—involuntary, the kind that comes from hearing the truth spoken aloud by someone who won’t let you pretend otherwise.
“What if I told you that catching her when she stumbled got me so hard I could barely form a sentence?”
Dorian’s eyebrows climbed.
I found myself telling him everything—the collision, the press of her body against mine, the scent that had thrown open some locked room in my memory, the moment she felt exactly what her proximity was doing to me and held my gaze anyway.
“You’re in deep trouble,” he said, and for once the teasing was gone.
“Because Hadley isn’t like the women who throw themselves at your feet.”
“No.” I stared into my untouched drink.
“She’s not.
She’s impossibly talented too.
I want her long-term—professionally.
But I can’t deny it.
She sets something on fire in me that makes rational thought feel like a luxury.”
By the time Dorian left, I was no closer to resolution and considerably more unsettled.
I paced my apartment like a caged animal, unable to sit, unable to stop wondering who Hadley was having dinner with.
A boyfriend?
Some well-adjusted man who wasn’t her employer and could therefore touch her without risking a lawsuit?
The thought made my jaw ache.
I tried working.
Opened my laptop, stared at spreadsheets, absorbed nothing.
The numbers blurred into green eyes and emerald dresses and the phantom weight of a waist beneath my hands.
It was well past midnight when I reached for my phone.
The impulse was reckless, unprofessional, and entirely irresistible.
If I was awake and burning, she could be too.
Did you mention to your dinner companion that your boss left you with soaked panties?
I knew what I’d done to her.
I’d felt the shiver run through her.
I’d seen the flush climb her throat.
The attraction between us ran both ways, and I was done pretending otherwise.
I stared at the sent message expecting nothing back but silence.
Hadley was too controlled, too composed, too carefully professional to answer something this—
My phone buzzed.
Yes, I told him.
Have you managed to get your cock under control yet?
I stared at the screen.
Then I laughed—a genuine, startled sound that echoed through the empty apartment.
This infuriating, composed, devastatingly unpredictable woman had just returned fire with a precision most corporate negotiators couldn’t match.
Very few people surprised me.
She’d done it three times in one day.
Yes, I got it under control.
Every professional boundary I’d ever maintained with a female employee was now a burning ruin at my feet, and I couldn’t summon an ounce of regret.
She fired back instantly.
No hesitation, no retreat.
If you keep fantasizing about my ass, you’ll never get any sleep.
She wasn’t wrong.
Sleep was a theoretical concept at this point.
The fact that she was matching me—provocation for provocation—was making the situation considerably worse.
She would pay for this audacity.
I would ensure it.
What a smart mouth.
You shouldn’t speak to your boss that way.
Since neither of us will be sleeping, I expect you in the office an hour early to finish the presentation for Thursday’s meeting.
Don’t be late.
Then a second message, a closer designed to leave her without the last word:
Choose your next response carefully.
One more smart comment and I’ll order you back to the office right now.
The typing indicator appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then silence.
She’d conceded the final point, and the satisfaction that flooded through me was disproportionate and warm enough to carry me to the edge of sleep.
I set the phone on the nightstand and stared at the ceiling.
My body was still humming, still replaying every word she’d typed.
Tomorrow she’d walk into my office composed and professional, pretending this conversation had never happened.
And we’d both know that something had shifted between us that couldn’t be shifted back.
I closed my eyes and dreamed of green eyes and golden masks and a scent I’d been trying to place for three years.