Hadley’s POV
His last message had detonated something inside me—something I couldn’t reassemble and wasn’t sure I wanted to.
If Rowan Sinclair thought I’d crawl into the office meek and compliant, cowed by a midnight text, he was about to discover exactly how badly he’d miscalculated.
I was out of bed before the alarm.
Standing in front of my closet with my pulse already climbing, I reached past every sensible option and pulled out the weapon: a sleek black dress that walked the razor’s edge between professional and ruinous.
The fabric clung to every line of my body—hemline at mid-thigh, neckline a whispered suggestion of what lay beneath.
I paired it with crimson heels sharp enough to leave marks on marble and selected the most scandalous lingerie I owned, a scrap of lace that would leave no trace beneath the clinging fabric.
My hair would fall loose today.
Every strand of professional restraint, undone.
I scrawled a note for Cora, grabbed my keys, and drove to the office with my heart hammering against my ribs.
Today, Rowan Sinclair was going to learn that provoking Hadley Vane had consequences.
I arrived twenty minutes early—enough time to brew his chamomile tea, arrange my desk, and assume the posture of a woman who’d slept peacefully and had nothing on her mind but productivity.
The trap was set.
All it needed was its prey.
The elevator chimed at precisely the agreed time.
I kept my eyes on my screen, but every nerve tracked his approach—leather soles on marble, his cologne reaching me before he did: cedar and something darker.
His footsteps stopped dead at my desk.
I heard the sharp intake of breath he didn’t manage to suppress in time, and the satisfaction that bloomed in my chest was warm and vicious.
“Good morning, Miss Vane.” His voice was rougher than usual.
“How did you sleep?”
I lifted my gaze with practiced innocence, as if the dress were an accident and the heels a coincidence.
“Like a baby, Mr.
Sinclair.
And yourself?”
His smile was a blade wrapped in silk.
“I had to work off some excess energy.
Because of you.” The heat that pooled low in my belly was immediate, unwanted, entirely predictable.
“Shall we head to my office?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
I rose and walked ahead of him, slow, deliberate.
The curse that escaped his lips behind me was barely audible, but I caught it.
My dress was performing exactly as designed.
Inside his office, I moved toward the desk, but he redirected me.
“The couch, Hadley.
Easier to review your screen together.”
I settled onto the black leather, crossed my legs, and let the dress ride up just enough to reveal the lace edge of a stocking top. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
I made no move to adjust it.
“Is there a problem, sir?” I asked, all concern.
“There’s definitely a problem.” His gaze dropped to his own lap, where the evidence was impossible to miss.
“And we need to address it before my next meeting.”
He sat beside me—close, his thigh pressed against mine—and heat shot straight through my hip into my stomach.
“Perhaps you should learn some self-control,” I said, uncrossing and recrossing my legs in a motion designed to end careers.
I’d miscalculated.
In one fluid motion he had me pinned against the arm of the couch.
His body caged mine, one hand braced beside my head, the other dragging up the length of my thigh from knee to hem.
His face hovered inches from mine, breathing ragged, eyes burning violet-blue.
“Or maybe—” His voice dropped into a register that belonged nowhere near an office.
“—I should bend you over this couch and take you with nothing but those heels on.”
Heat surged through me before my mind could catch up—a full-body wave that started at the base of my spine and rolled outward, leaving me wet and shaking beneath him.
His hand gripped my hip and hauled me against him, and the press of his arousal against my thigh was so blunt, so undeniable, that a sound tore out of my throat—low, involuntary, the end of any pretense of restraint.
His mouth dropped to my throat.
Teeth grazed the tendon there, tongue traced the hollow beneath my ear, and the growl he made against my skin shot straight through my body.
“You’re destroying me,” he rasped.
“You know that.”
My hips rolled against him on instinct, chasing friction, chasing relief—
He wrenched himself away.
Turned his back.
Pressed both hands to his face like a man surfacing from deep water.
Before I could process the withdrawal, he was on me again—mouth crashing against mine, hands everywhere at once.
He shoved my dress up, palmed my breast through the fabric hard enough to make me gasp, found the lace between my thighs, and tore it away with a single savage pull.
The cold air against my flushed, swollen skin should have broken the spell.
It didn’t.
His fingers found me slick, aching, and worked with a precision that had me arching, clutching his shoulders, the pleasure winding tighter with every stroke.
His thumb circled my clit while one finger pushed inside, then two, curling against a spot that whited out the edges of my vision.
I was seconds from shattering.
He stopped.
Pulled his hand away.
Stood.
Walked to the far end of the couch, pressed his palms to his thighs, and breathed like he’d run a marathon.
“This is wrong.” His voice was wrecked. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“I’m not the kind of man who takes advantage of his employees.
But you’re testing every limit I have.” A pause.
“Only one woman has ever affected me like this, and we need to figure out what the hell we’re going to do about it.”
I stared at him, stunned, my body screaming with the betrayal of it.
Twice.
He’d walked me to the edge and abandoned me there twice—once with his body, once with his hands—and now he stood across the room looking wrecked and noble while I sat with my dress around my waist, underwear destroyed, so aroused I could barely see straight.
Fury gave me legs.
I stood, smoothed my dress, scanned the couch for the remnants of my underwear.
Gone.
The second time in my life I’d lost underwear to this man’s hands, and both times I’d been too far gone to notice the moment it happened.
I inhaled.
Exhaled.
Rebuilt myself from the ground up—composure first, dignity second.
“Mr.
Sinclair.” My voice came out steady.
“Perhaps some chamomile tea would help with your obvious agitation.”
His expression—frustration, desire, reluctant admiration—was almost worth the humiliation.
He stood abruptly, gesturing at the situation straining against his trousers.
“Or maybe I should handle this myself.” He turned his back.
“Hadley.
I need a moment.
Please return to your office.”
I walked toward the door with every shred of grace I could muster, my body still throbbing, the absence of underwear beneath my dress a constant, maddening reminder of what had just happened and what hadn’t.
“Forgetting something?” His voice, laced with dark amusement, stopped me at the threshold.
He had my underwear.
We both knew it.
“No, sir.” I didn’t turn around.
“Nothing at all.”
I closed the door behind me and made it to my chair before my knees buckled.
Behind that door, I knew exactly what he was doing, and the knowledge sent a fresh wave of heat through me that was neither welcome nor ignorable.
This war was far from over.
But the next move was mine.