Rowan’s POV
Dorian sat across from me at our usual table, watching my face with the calibrated attention of a man who’d known me long enough to read the weather behind my expressions.
“So let me get this straight.” He set his glass down.
“She spent the entire morning walking around the office with no underwear under that dress?”
The realization landed with the weight it deserved.
I’d left her exposed—in that provocative black number, with nothing beneath it, in a building full of people.
Any wrong step, any careless bend, and she’d have been in a situation I’d engineered through sheer impulsive destruction.
The thought should have horrified me.
Part of it did.
The rest of me was still holding the scrap of lace in my desk drawer and refusing to return it.
“This woman is going to be the end of me, Dorian.”
“Don’t play the victim.
You fired the first shot.
What exactly were you expecting?”
I raked both hands through my hair, the frustration a physical weight in my chest.
“I called her in early to push her buttons.
Test her composure.
Maybe watch her squirm.
I never planned to touch her.
But she walked in wearing that dress like she’d weaponized every curve on her body, and those heels, and the way the fabric moved when she sat down—my brain simply stopped functioning.”
“And clearly, hers did too.
Face it—whatever’s building between you two isn’t going to stay contained much longer.”
“She’s not going to break first.” I said it with more conviction than I felt.
“She plays this game like a professional, and I refuse to be the one who caves.”
“So what’s your next move?”
The idea materialized fully formed, wicked and perfect—a counterstrike designed to end the stalemate on my terms.
“I know that look,” Dorian said, leaning forward.
“You’ve thought of something devious, and I want every detail.”
“I’m going to apologize to my dear assistant.” I let the smile spread—slow, predatory, entirely calculated.
“I’m going to buy her replacement underwear.”
Dorian’s laughter echoed through the restaurant.
He shook his head, eyes bright with disbelief and admiration.
“You’re absolutely insane.”
The saleswoman—a discreet woman in her fifties who’d clearly seen stranger requests—helped me select a piece that was more architecture than fabric: delicate lace, barely-there coverage, the word sexy spelled across the back straps in tiny golden charms that caught the light.
The material was exquisite and fragile—the kind of thing designed to be admired, worn once, and destroyed.
I had the purchase wrapped in tissue paper and placed in an elegant gift bag with gold handles.
Back at the office, Hadley was at her desk, typing with the focused intensity of someone rebuilding a wall I’d knocked down that morning.
Beside her computer sat a small bakery box containing what appeared to be a slice of chocolate cake.
Perfect.
The final ingredient for what I had in mind.
“Miss Vane.” I approached with my most impenetrable business expression.
“I need you to obtain a printed copy of the quarterly financial report from Orson’s office.
The physical copy—not electronic.”
She could have requested it digitally in thirty seconds.
But I needed her away from her desk, and she was too professional to question the method.
She nodded and left, heels clicking a crisp rhythm down the corridor.
The moment she disappeared, I collected her cake and retreated to my office, settling onto the leather couch with the gift bag positioned beside me and the stolen dessert arranged on the coffee table like bait.
She returned with the report—a thick document she handed over without comment—and I accepted it with a nod.
“Please lock the door, Miss Vane.
We’ll be discussing sensitive financial information.”
Suspicion flickered across her features—a brief contraction of the brow, a fractional tightening of the jaw—but she complied, turning the lock with a click that seemed louder than it should have been.
She walked back and stood before the desk, uncertain.
“Sit down.
This review will take time.”
Her eyes found the gift bag immediately—its gold handles glinting beside me on the leather—and then the cake on the coffee table, and understanding dawned across her face in a wave I could practically see.
She knew I was orchestrating something.
She sat at the far end of the couch anyway, and the fact that she chose to stay—that she walked into the trap with her eyes open—sent a pulse of respect and desire through me in equal measure. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
For the next hour, I worked.
Genuinely, thoroughly, without subterfuge.
We reviewed the quarterly report page by page, and I gave her detailed instructions that she recorded with flawless precision.
The hour of pure professionalism served its purpose—her shoulders dropped, her breathing evened, her guard lowered by increments as she convinced herself that perhaps the gift bag was innocent after all.
When the last page was reviewed and the instructions recorded, I set the report aside.
Reached for the cake.
Leaned back into the cushions with deliberate nonchalance, opened the box, and took a slow, generous bite.
The chocolate was rich, dark, and obscenely good.
I closed my eyes and let a low sound of pleasure escape—genuine appreciation, theatrically timed—knowing she was watching.
Knowing she couldn’t look away.
“This is extraordinary.” I opened my eyes and met her gaze with exaggerated innocence.
“I hope you don’t mind me sampling your dessert.”
She shook her head—a small, confused gesture—and I could see the conflicting signals short-circuiting behind her green eyes: suspicion, curiosity, the residual heat from the morning, and something newer—a cautious, reluctant anticipation that she didn’t want to feel and couldn’t suppress.
I picked up the gift bag and extended it toward her.
“Consider this a peace offering, Miss Vane.
I sincerely hope you find it acceptable.”
She took it from my hand.
Her fingers brushed mine in the transfer—a contact so brief it shouldn’t have mattered, and yet the current that passed between us was so immediate, so visceral, that we both felt it.
I saw it in the way her breath caught.
She saw it in the way I didn’t pull back.
Game on, Miss Vane.
Let’s see exactly what you do with this.