Page 10 of Say My Name

The image turns something ugly and possessive inside me. Jealousy. There it is. An honest answer I don’t fucking like.

“This isn’t a big-brother speech.”

Her eyebrows pull together. “Then what is it?”

I don’t have a response I can say in her office. I don’t have one I should be thinking.

“I’m concerned you’re doing this alone.”

“Being single is part of the point.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then tell me what you mean.”

I stare at her, furious at myself because I can’t. Any honest answer crosses a line I drew the day I hired her, and every safe answer makes me sound like Cliff with a better suit.

The phone rings.

She snatches it up on the first ring. “Elena Vale.”

Her eyes stay on mine as she listens to whoever is speaking, and I know a dismissal when I hear one even if she isn’t saying it to me.

I move toward the door.

“Dinner at seven,” I tell her quietly.

She covers the receiver. “This conversation is over.”

“The binder conversation is over. Dinner is still happening.”

“I may develop plans.”

“You won’t.”

“I could.”

“I know you, El, you aren’t developing spontaneous plans in the next six hours.” I leave her with a wink. The glare she gives me would frighten anyone in this building with a functioning survival instinct.

Four years ago, Elena walked into my office and destroyed every sensible thought in my head with two words and a charcoal-gray suit.

“Mr. Rowe.”

I’m standing beside the windows with the résumé Cliff emailed me open on my desk. My assistant, Evan, showed her in less than a minute ago and is lingering near the door because Cliff called him twice this morning to make sure Elena got through security.

She looks from Evan to me.

“Am I early?”

“No.” I glance at the clock. “You’re exactly on time.”

“Good.”

She doesn’t thank Evan excessively or apologize for taking up space. She gives him a warm smile when he offers her coffee, declines, then waits until he leaves before turning back to me.

I haven’t seen her in I don’t know how many years.

Cliff and I met when we were nineteen-year-old college roommates with more confidence than sense. We bonded over our drive to succeed in life and the desire to build empires that would dominate the Chicago skyline. By the time he brought me home for the first Thanksgiving, Elena was just an awkward kid holding court at the end of the dinner table, arguing some point with her father while her mother tried to interrupt. After college, I saw her occasionally at family events, weddings, holidays, one disastrous New Year’s Eve party where Cliff nearly set their family house on fire when he tried to light a blunt with a patio heater.