I told him just an hour.
He repeated the exact same sentence, same tone, like a recording stuck on loop.
So, I closed the door.
That was two hours ago. I’ve been pacing and rummaging through drawers ever since, trying to keep myself occupied. Before I can even think to start cleaning up the mess, the elevator chimes.
I’m in the kitchen, leaning on the island when it happens. Red saucepan next to me. At one point, I was thinking about cooking. Not anymore. My palm flattens against the marble before I even realize I’m bracing.
Footsteps. Then Raffaele steps into the kitchen.
Still in last night’s suit. The shirt’s been buttoned back up at some point, but you can see where it was untucked before.
He doesn’t look at me, just walks past me toward a cabinet.
“Where have you been?”
He doesn’t answer. There’s a darkness to his energy. It should scare me. Instead, it makes me insatiably curious.
“Raffaele.”
He pulls a glass off the rack, grabs a bottle off the counter—whiskey, it looks like—pours.
“Raffaele,” I repeat. “We need to?—”
“Not now.”
“Not now?”
I follow him.
“I’ve been locked in this apartment since you left. I don’t know where you went, what you did, or what the hell’s happening with my life. And you walk in here, looking likethat, and tell menot now?”
He takes a sip of the whiskey and looks around at the mess I made.
“Looks like you’ve been keeping yourself busy.” He nods at the saucepan next to me. “Thinking about cooking, huh?”
I push it away. “I’m not hungry. All I—” Before I can finish, the saucepan slips over the edge of the island and crashes to the floor.
The sound makes me nearly jump through the ceiling. Raffaele doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he takes another sip of whiskey and slowly moves closer.
“It’s for your own safety,” he says, bending down to pick up the saucepan. His fingers wrap around the handle, and a sinful glint flashes across his eyes.
For a split-second, I feel like I know exactly what he wants to do with that.
Spank me.
“I’m your assistant,” I gulp.
“Is that so?”
He twirls the saucepan in his fingers. Once. Twice.
“That’s right. That’s the job. I have a job. I have files. The Martinez depositions are due Friday, and I was halfway through cross-referencing the witness statements when you took me out of the office last night, and if we miss that filing window, the whole?—”
He sets the saucepan back down next to me, and a strange wave of disappointment crashes through me.
“The Martinez case is closed,” he says.
