God help me, her skirt’s hiked up just enough to show the curve of her thigh, pale and soft against the dark sheets.
Then I notice it. Her uniform.
Black skirt. White button-down shirt.
Housekeeping.
She’s not bait. Not a bribe. Or is this part of the act?
I scan the room. The drawer I left half open is still in the exact same position. The folder on the nightstand with a printout of the latest projections related to the Lockhart acquisition doesn’t seem to have been moved.
Next I glance at my favorite pair of cuff links. Near as I can tell, they’re where I left them, both owl emblems facing toward me. In the overhead light, an emerald eye winks. The watch my father left me when he died is nearby. Either of those items would be worth a year of her paycheck.
So she’s not here to steal.
I shrug out of my jacket and toss it onto the back of a nearby chair. She doesn’t stir.
Quietly I move in closer.
I reach for her shoulder—then I freeze.
Fuck me.
I know her.
It hits like a slap, memory flaring to life behind my eyes: a conference room three years ago. Glass walls, a dozen men twice her age, a young woman in a prim pencil skirt, defiance in her cornflower-blue eyes.
Seraphina Goddamn Hollis.
The intern who called bullshit in front of the board. The girl who humiliated me with facts and made men twice her age glance my way like maybe I didn’t deserve the crown.
I should’ve handled it behind closed doors.
Instead, I fired her on the spot. Let the world think she’d betrayed me. Let her name carry the weight of my mistake.
And I’ve thought about her every fucking day since.
My first instinct is to wake her. Tear into her. Drag answers from that soft throat.
Because she’s looked at my secrets before, and she nearly buried me.
I should hate her.
But looking at her now—hair falling loose around her face, fingers curled like she’s dreaming of something better—hate feels like the wrong word.
A soft sound slips from her lips, and she shifts gently. Her lashes flutter.
Her eyelids fly open, and uncertainty races through their depths, swift and hard.
Frantically she scrambles back toward the headboard, away from me, losing her remaining shoe. It clatters loudly off the hardwood.
“Oh my God.” Her voice is frightened and panicked. “I’m sorry… I didn’t—” Hurrying to concoct a story? “I thought this suite was empty, that the guest had checked out.”
Maybe realizing she’d trapped herself, she tries to get off the bed, but her feet tangle, sending her sprawling back onto the mattress.
Once more, she attempts to escape, and I clamp my hand on her shoulder, holding her in place.
Shaking me off, she shoots herself back again until her spine hits the headboard.
