Page 5 of Say My Name

I fold my arms, a pathetic line of defense. Part of me is furious at his presumption. Another, smaller part is waiting to see what he'll do next. “You still haven't asked.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Elena. Will you allow me to continue the annual tradition you already knew about, by letting me take you to dinner?”

“That feels like a loaded question.”

“I wanted the correct answer to be obvious.”

I watch his face, wanting to see if I can crack that infuriating calm. “And if I say no?”

“Then I cancel the reservation and spend the evening wondering why you lied to Maya about popcorn.”

A laugh slips past my lips before I can stop it, and he looks so pleased about it that for a second I forget we're standing in my office in the middle of a workday. “Fine. Dinner.”

“Good.”

“You look relieved for a guy who already knew I had nothing going on.”

“I like getting my way.”

“There it is.”

“You were worried it had gone somewhere.” He holds my eyes one beat past comfortable, long enough for my pulse to kick up, before he checks the clock behind me. “Your call's in four minutes.”

“I thought you came in to say happy birthday.”

“I did.”

I check the clock myself. “You did that a while ago.”

“I'm thorough.”

“You have an eleven o'clock.”

“I moved it.”

“You moved a meeting?” I give him a suspicious look.

“I prioritized coming to see you.” He shrugs. “You should try it on your own behalf sometime.” The words land like a perfectly aimed dart, striking something I didn't even know was exposed.

My eyes go to the binder. His follow. It's sitting right there on the edge of my desk, close enough for him to reach, and I've been so busy with his hands and his dinner and the warm thing his voice does when it's just us in here that I stopped guarding it.

“We'll get a drink first,” he says. “It's the tradition anyway, your birthday and your work anniversary landing on the same day. This year's extra special, though. Big three-oh.”

His voice drops on the word, a low resonance that vibrates right through me. Big.

And there goes my brain, straight off the road. I'm a teenager in kitten heels at Cliff's wedding, hanging around the edge of a group of bridesmaids crowded over somebody's phone, blushing and gasping so hard one of them has to sit down. It's a short video. I look before I understand what I'm looking at, and I keep looking a while after I do. Then, I go stand by the cake for twenty minutes with my entire face on fire while the image I just saw of Dominic Rowe’s hips thrusting rhythmically while the woman beneath him moaned his name in the most exaggerated tone I’d ever heard before.

Ten seconds of somebody else's screen has left a memory burned into my brain so clearly I’m sure it will be the last thing I see before death. It’s also left me with two facts I have never admitted to Cliff, or to Dominic, or to a single living person.

Dominic Rowe really likes it when you say his name during sex. I remember the way his eyes closed for a fraction of a second in the video, the only sign he’d lost control.

And his nickname, “Big D,” is absolutely not metaphorical.

CHAPTER 2

Dominic

Elena Vale is hiding something from me.