When I knock on his door, he looks up from his drafting table with that same relaxed smile that now makes my stomach twist with pure agony.
“Commissioner’s office?” he asks.
“No,” I say, my voice carefully neutral. “Someone called to let you know you forgot something with her last night. She said you’d know what she meant.”
I watch his face closely, searching for… I don’t know what. Embarrassment?
But something else flickers across Noah’s face—recognition. Then a smile that makes my blood boil.
“Thanks,” he says, turning back to his drawing like it’s nothing. Like he didn’t just confirm everything I’ve been imagining for the past hour.
I stand frozen in his doorway, waiting for something. An explanation? An apology? But why would he apologize? He doesn’t owe me anything. We’re not together. We’re not even friends.
“Will that be all?” he asks, not looking up from his work.
“Yes,” I manage, my voice tight. “That’s all.”
I retreat to my desk with a burning face and ringing ears. I’m not jealous. It can’t be jealousy. I have no right to feel jealous about who Noah King spends his nights with.
Yet here I am, imagining him with a faceless woman, her hands in his hair, her lips on his neck, and it makes me want to throw something into the glass wall separating me from the object of my rage.
“You look like you’re plotting murder,” Martin says, appearing at my desk with his usual impeccable timing. Today’s socks feature dancing tacos against a background of electric blue, and his socks have never annoyed me more.
“Not murder,” I mutter. “Just minor bodily harm.”
Martin’s eyebrows shoot up. “Trouble in paradise?”
I glare at him. “There is no paradise. There’s just work.”
“A-a-and?” Martin suggests, sensing the unspoken words in the air like a tarot card reader.
“And there’s just work and his inability to keep it in his pants for five minutes. Maybe that’s why the board is after him, and all of us suffer because of his mood swings,” I snap, immediately regretting the words as Martin’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.
“Well, well, well,” he says, settling his hip against my desk. “Who exactly did our fearless leader shag to earn such venom this morning?”
I shake my head, forcing my expression into something neutral. “No one—nothing. Forget I said anything.”
Martin studies me, his ridiculous taco socks momentarily forgotten as he leans closer. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Noah coming in looking like he just won the lottery, would it?”
My cheeks burn. Am I that transparent? Is Noah that transparent?
“I don’t care what Noah does or who he does it with,” I lie, typing nonsense into a document just to look busy. If someone ever checked my saved files when I need to do something with my hands, they’d send me to a room with soft walls.
“Of course not,” Martin agrees, his tone making it clear he believes exactly the opposite.
I glance at my screen and quickly delete the evidence of my distraction. “Don’t you have work to do? Some project to manage? People to annoy who aren’t me?”
“Nothing as interesting as whatever’s happening here,” he says, but he straightens up when Noah’s office door opens, and the man in question strides out, looking even more relaxed than before, if that’s possible. Did he have a quickie behind the closed doors just now?
He grabs his jacket from the hook by his door, not even glancing in my direction. “I’m stepping out for lunch. I’ll be backin an hour,” he says, pulling his jacket on and not giving me even one glance.
I watch him walk away with a clenched jaw. An hour for lunch? It’s barely eleven thirty. And judging by that satisfied smile still playing around his lips, I have a pretty good idea whom he’s meeting.
“Wow,” Martin says, settling back against my desk. “That was cold. Even for Noah.”
I force myself to shrug, like I don’t care that my boss just dismissed me like I’m invisible. “He can take lunch whenever he wants.”
“Sure he can. But usually he at least acknowledges your existence when he leaves the office.” Martin tilts his head, studying my face. “What happened between you two? Yesterday you were all cozy teamwork, today you’re back to icebergs.”
