Page 135 of Boardroom Mask

She doesn’t interrupt this time.

“And then there’s the feds,” I continue. “The second your article hits the front page, every three-letter agency in Washington opens a file. FBI, DOJ, IRS, the whole alphabet soup. They’ll launch investigations aimed at everyone, including and especially the current CEO.”

I pull up to a red light and finally look at her. She’s watching me with her lips pressed together and her arms crossed over her chest.

“We already won,” I tell her. “Lukas is out. The kill order is dead. You’re safe. I’m safe. We can just be happy now. That’s an option, Jillian. That’s actually an option for us. Why would we set fire to it?”

She doesn’t say anything for a long time. The light turns green. I pull through the intersection and take the left onto my block, and she still hasn’t spoken. I can hear the heater blowing and the tick of the turn signal and the low murmur of whatever’s on the radio, but none of it fills the space her silence is occupying.

I park in the garage beneath my building and kill the engine.

Then, quietly, without looking at me, she says, “Okay. I’ll kill it.”

Everything in my chest unclenches at once. I didn’t realize how tight I was wound until the tension lets go, and the relief is so total that I have to close my eyes for a second.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She unbuckles her seatbelt and reaches down into the footwell for her boots. “You’re right. It’s not worth the risk. Not after everything we just survived. We can be happy. So let’s be happy.”

She pulls one boot on, then the other. Her face is calm. She looks tired, mostly. Understandable, given everything that’s happened in the last few days.

“Thank you,” I say. I tilt her chin up toward me and kiss her gently. “Let’s go upstairs and be happy.”

PART IV

KILL THE STORY

54

KIR

“Oh, my life / Is changin’ every day / In every possible way / And oh, my dreams”

— “Dreams” by The Cranberries

The next morning, I wake to the sound of typing. My bedroom is flooded with limp, gray morning light, barely enough to see. It must still be early. I look around and see that Jillian is cross-legged on the bed beside me, laptop balanced on her knees, hair piled into a messy knot on top of her head. She’s still wearing my T-shirt, with lacy lilac panties underneath. Her fingers are flying fast across the keyboard, her brow furrowed in concentration, and she’s got that look she gets when she’s deep inside something and the rest of the world has been temporarily evicted from her consciousness.

I watch her for a few seconds without moving. She must feel me looking, because her fingers freeze mid-keystroke. She glances down at me, and in one smooth motion, she folds the laptop shut.

“Morning,” she chirps.

“Morning.” My voice is rough with sleep. “What are you working on?”

“Just boring stuff. Fluff pieces.”

“At—” I check the clock on the nightstand. “6:14 in the morning?”

“News doesn’t sleep, Lazarev.” She sets the laptop on the floor on her side of the bed, then scoots over and inserts herself under my arm. “Now, cuddle me; it’s cold as balls in this stupid city.”

I pull her in close. She’s inhumanly cold, her feet like ice against my shins, and she hisses when I flinch.

“Warned you,” she says.

“You didn’t warn me about anything. You just shoved your frozen feet on me.”

“Must’ve said it in my head.”

I wrap both arms around her and tuck her under my chin. Her hair smells like my shampoo. It’s crazy how feral that makes me, all these little marks of my claim on her. My shampoo, my shirt, the nips and nicks and bruises that I’ve given her. Every small domestic act feels enormous, because I’ve never had any of this before. Not once. Not with anyone.