"Terrified. Exhilarated. Like I’ve stepped off a building and I’m either flying or falling and I won’t know which until I hit the ground."
"That’s a very honest answer."
"I’m paying you eight hundred dollars an hour. Dishonesty would have a poor ROI."
He told me the feelings were valid. That the intensity was proportional to the deprivation. That a man who’d spent so many years avoiding human connection and then suddenly found it was going to feel everything at full volume because there was no insulation, no calluses, no learned tolerance. He told me to be careful. Not with Anna. With myself. Because the crash, if it came, would be proportional to the height.
I told him I understood. Then I drove to the office and sat twelve feet from her and found that I understood nothing.
Miles was insufferable. He appeared in my doorway at nine-fifteen with a wide grin. "Glad to see you again. How was the cabin?"
"Productive."
"I bet it was." He leaned against the frame. "Very productive. Several days of uninterrupted productivity. In the mountains. With your assistant. During a storm."
"One more comment and your dental plan will need upgrading."
"Ah. Love has made you violent." He folded his arms. "Mona wants details, by the way. She called me three times yesterday. I told her I knew nothing. She didn’t believe me."
"Because you never know nothing. You’re constitutionally incapable of minding your own business."
"True. But in this case I genuinely don’t know the details. I just know you went to the cabin alone and came back not aloneand you’re sitting in your office with an expression I’ve never seen on your face before."
"What expression?"
"Happy." He said it simply. "You look happy, Jace. It’s unsettling but I’m supportive."
He left whistling.
The morning moved. Meetings. Emails. The Meridian co-production was moving forward, casting finalized, the production meeting scheduled here at Hunter Interactive for Thursday. Two days away. I had notes to review, contracts to sign.
I should have been reviewing the Meridian contracts. Instead I was watching her through the security feed. The way she organized files. The way she tilted her head when she read. The way she tucked her hair behind her left ear with two fingers, the same gesture I’d drawn from memory in charcoal, and my fingers itched for the pencil again.
Dr. Adler’s voice:Be careful. The crash, if it comes, will be proportional to the height.
I was very high up. And I could not bring myself to care.
At eleven forty, she knocked.
"Mr. Hunter, the eleven-fifty with the Meridian team starts in ten minutes."
She was standing in my doorway in her work clothes, professional face on, indoor shoes, looking every bit like my assistant, and I wanted to wreck it. All of it. The professionalism. The composure. The twelve feet.
"Close the door," I said.
She hesitated, reading my face. Then she closed the door.
I was across the office before she’d turned back around. My hands found her waist and I pulled her against me and kissed her. The sound she made against my mouth, surprise melting into desire, was the best thing I’d heard all morning.
"Jace." She put her hand on my chest. "The meeting starts in ten minutes."
"I’ll be quick."
"You’re never quick."
I bit her earlobe. Gentle. Just enough. She jerked. "Is that a compliment, Ms. Wilson?"
She didn’t answer. I kissed the spot below her ear—the one I’d discovered at the cabin that made her lose her train of thought. Then her neck. She leaned into me and the moan that came out of her was low and soft.
