"You need to get warm." I stride toward my office, my wet shoes squelching unpleasantly against the carpet, and retrieve the spare suit jacket I keep hanging on the back of my door for emergencies. This one is dry, thank the ancestors, the charcoal wool soft and unmarked by rain. I turn to find Cypress standing in the middle of the open floor plan, looking small and bedraggled and absolutely beautiful with her hair hanging in wet ropes around her face and her blouse plastered to her skin in a way that makes my mouth go dry.
I cross to her in three long strides and drape the jacket over her shoulders without asking permission. The garment swallows her entirely, the shoulders hanging past her arms, the hem falling nearly to her knees, and she looks so adorably lost in the vast expanse of fabric that I have to physically restrain myself from pulling her into my arms. She makes a small sound of surprise, her hands coming up automatically to clutch the lapels, and then she does something that nearly destroys every shred of my hard-won control.
She buries her nose in the collar of my jacket and inhales deeply.
The sound she makes is quiet, barely audible, but to my ears it rings out like a battle horn. A soft, breathy little sigh of pleasure that shoots straight to my groin and makes my entire body go rigid with want. Her eyes flutter closed for just a moment, her expression one of such transparent enjoyment that I know she has no idea I am watching, no idea that she has just revealed something she probably meant to keep hidden.
She likes my scent. She finds pleasure in the smell of my skin, my clothes, the essence of me that lingers in the fabric.This small, brilliant, human woman who has conquered my thoughts and invaded my strategy sessions and turned my carefully ordered existence completely upside down—she wants me. Perhaps not in the same overwhelming, all-consuming way that I want her, but the desire is there, written plainly on her face for anyone with eyes to see.
I force myself to turn away before she opens her eyes and catches me staring. The effort required is monumental, but I manage it, striding back toward my office with a briskness that I hope conceals the turmoil raging beneath my surface.
"I need to send some correspondence to our new vendor ally," I call over my shoulder. "Confirm the terms of our supply agreement before Vance has a chance to poison the well. You should dry off. There are towels in the storage closet."
I do not wait for her response. I close myself in my office and lean against the door, pressing my forehead to the cool wood and taking several deep, steadying breaths. The rain continues to patter against the windows, a gentle rhythm that does nothing to calm the storm still raging in my blood. I can still see her face in that doorway, still feel the phantom warmth of her body almost touching mine, still hear that soft little sigh she made when she breathed in my scent.
Thirty days. I have thirty days to turn this company profitable, defeat Vance, and prove myself worthy of conquering Cypress Evans. It seems both an eternity and no time at all, and I am not entirely certain which prospect terrifies me more.
I push away from the door and settle behind my desk, forcing my attention to the battle at hand. There will be time for other conquests later, when the war is won and I can pursue her with the single-minded focus she deserves. For now, I must be a warchief first and a man second, no matter how much my traitorous heart rails against the prioritization.
The evening passes in a blur of emails and strategy documents and careful planning. I hear Cypress moving around in the outer office, the soft sounds of her typing and organizing providing a strange comfort that I refuse to examine too closely. She is efficient even when soaked and shivering, her dedication to our shared cause evident in every task she completes without being asked. Twice I look up from my work to find her staring at me through the glass wall of my office, and twice she looks away quickly, a flush rising to her cheeks that has nothing to do with the warmth returning to her rain-chilled skin.
By the time the rain stops completely and the last rays of sunset begin to filter through the clouds, I am satisfied with the day's progress. Our vendor alliance is secured, our supply chain restored, and our position significantly strengthened. Vance will not find us easy prey, not with Cypress's brilliant mind guiding our defenses and my own strategic experience directing our attacks.
I am just beginning to compose a summary of our achievements for the clan elders back home when I hear a sharp intake of breath from the outer office.
The sound is quiet, easily missable if I had not been subconsciously tracking her movements all evening, but to my ears it rings out like an alarm. I am on my feet and moving before my conscious mind registers the decision, my body responding to the distress in that small sound with an instinct that bypasses rational thought entirely.
Cypress is standing at my desk. Not her own neat workspace in the outer office, but my desk, the mahogany monstrosity that came with the corner office and which I have slowly begun to make my own. She has a folder in her hands, unmarked and nondescript, the kind of plain manila envelope that could contain anything from expense reports to launch codes. Her facehas gone pale, all the color draining from her cheeks as she stares down at whatever documents she has discovered inside.
"Cypress?" I approach slowly, the way one might approach a wounded animal, careful not to startle her further. "What have you found?"
She looks up at me, and the expression on her face stops me in my tracks. It is not fear, not exactly, though there is something vulnerable lurking in the depths of her eyes. It is betrayal, raw and fresh, the look of someone who has just discovered that the ground beneath their feet is not as solid as they believed.
"What is this?" She asks. She holds up the folder, and I see the documents inside—dense legal text, corporate letterhead, signatures and seals that I recognize with a sinking feeling in my gut. "Knox, what is this?"
"This is a merger document." The words come out flat, accusatory, nothing like her usual professional tone. ""A proposal for combining your clan's holdings with the company assets. Dated your very first week in this building."
She takes a shaky breath, and when she continues. "There's no mention of saving this company anywhere in these pages. Just a plan to absorb the assets and eliminate the existing staff. This was always the backup plan, wasn't it? Strip the assets and dissolve everyone's jobs the moment things got too difficult."
The merger document—I had forgotten it existed, a preliminary proposal drafted by clan bureaucrats right after I took command, before she convinced me we could save this enterprise, before everything changed. It is ancient history, a relic of plans that no longer apply, but she does not know that. She cannot know that, because I never told her.
"Cypress, listen to me?—"
"Were you ever going to tell me?" She cuts me off. I hear the fear beneath the anger now, the desperate hope that I will deny it, explain it away, prove that her trust in me was not misplaced."Or was I just... what, a useful tool? Someone to guide you through the acquisition before you threw me away like everyone else?"
"No." The word comes out too loud, too forceful, and I see her flinch. "That document is obsolete. It was drafted before I arrived, before I understood the situation here, before I met you. Everything changed when I saw what you were capable of, Cypress. Everything."
The war plays out behind her eyes. The folder trembles slightly in her grip, the papers rustling with the motion.
"I need..." She shakes her head, backing away from me, and every step she takes feels like a blade sliding between my ribs. "I need time to think. I need to understand what this means."
"Cypress, please?—"
My jacket slips from her shoulders and pools on the floor, abandoned, and the sight of it lying there like a fallen flag of surrender makes something inside me crack.
"This changes nothing," I call after her, desperate and undignified and utterly unlike the warchief I have always prided myself on being. "Whatever that document says, whatever plans existed before—they are not my plans anymore. You are not disposable, Cypress. You are essential. You are?—"
The elevator doors close on my words, cutting me off mid-sentence, and I am left standing alone in the empty office.
