Page 4 of Say My Name

“I know.”

Of course he knows. Dominic knows my calendar and my coffee order and the way I square up a stack of paper when I'm avoiding something and exactly which acquisition meetings require patience he does not naturally possess. Four years in and we know each other's habits better than either of us probably realizes.

He doesn't leave. I click an email and wait for him to take the hint, but he wanders farther into my office instead with one hand going into his pocket, jacket pulling across his shoulders, and I follow that for about a second longer than a person should follow her boss's shoulders.

“Subtle,” he says, nodding toward the flowers.

“Maya denies responsibility for the size.”

“She thinks you've got a secret admirer.”

“I don't,” I say, a little too quickly.

“I know.”

Something about how flat he says it makes my stomach tighten. He isn't guessing; he knows. He's been paying attention. I turn my head. “How?”

He walks over to the credenza and runs a finger down the edge of one of the roses. I've watched those hands sign contracts and brace on a conference table while he took somebody's argument apart, and I've got no business at all wondering what that would feel like on me.

He looks up, catching my eyes on him.

Shit.

I grab Cliff's card so my hands and eyes have something to preoccupy them. “Are you monitoring my deliveries now?”

“I told Cliff to send them.”

“You... what?”

“I reminded him.”

“Rachel keeps a family calendar. He knew.”

“Then I provided timely executive support.”

“Why are you managing my brother's sibling obligations?”

“We made a deal.” The smile deepens. “He sends flowers. I take you to dinner.” My brain stalls for a second. The sheer, breathtaking arrogance of the two of them, trading my birthday around like a business arrangement.

He says it like Cliff had any jurisdiction over my evening and signed it over.

I try to keep my voice level, to treat this like any other scheduling conflict and not the high-handed maneuver it is. “You planned my birthday without asking me.”

“I confirmed plans we already had.”

I put the card down, planting my hands flat on my desk. A small, useless gesture of control. “We don't have plans.”

“It's April tenth, El.”

“I've signed three things with today's date on them, Dominic. I was also born on this day. I'm aware of the date.”

“So you know what tonight is.”

My birthday's also the day he hired me. First year he took me for a drink after work, second year it turned into dinner, and by the third neither of us bothered putting anything else on the calendar. I've called it a work-anniversary tradition out loud so many times that I've nearly stopped hearing how it sounds.

Cliff put us in a room four years ago because I needed out of my current job and couldn't explain why without involving a secret I’d been threatened into keeping, and Dominic gave me the job. Then I worked my ass off and earned it and kept earning it until nobody at Rowe Holdings could confuse my career with a favor between college friends.

I'm grateful to him, which is a completely different thing from owing him, and he has never once acted like he doesn't know the difference. He's also Cliff's best friend and my boss and eleven years older than me. Three good reasons to never screw this opportunity up.