Page 82 of Boardroom Mask

“Kir, I?—”

But we never find out what I was going to say, because before I can, we’re interrupted by three sharp knocks on the door.

“Mr. Lazarev? Is everything all right in there? I heard some, um… sounds.”

It’s his assistant, the feisty little blonde thing who tried to bar me from coming in here in the first place.

Kir’s hand tears out of my pants so fast it’s almost funny. He steps back and reaches up to straighten his tie with both hands. The transformation is instant and makes me jealous. One second, he’s got his fingers on me, and the next, he looks like he’s about to chair a board meeting. Not a hair out of place. Meanwhile, I’m standing here with my jeans unbuttoned and my face the color of a fire truck.

One of us is much better at changing masks than the other.

“Everything’s fine, Madison,” he calls toward the door. “Ms. Pierce was just leaving.”

“Okay! Just checking! Let me know if you need anything!” Madison’s heels retreat down the hallway.

I fumble with my jeans button, but my fingers aren’t cooperating. Kir watches me struggle with the button for another second, then looks away. Not out of politeness—I don’t think the word exists in his vocabulary. More like he knows thatif he keeps looking at me right now, neither of us is leaving this office with our dignity intact.

“You need to go,” he says. “Before someone else decides to check on the noise and finds you here.”

“You mean the noise of you throwing my professional boundaries into a wood chipper?”

He glances at the wreckage behind his desk. “You caused the bulk of it. That was a twelve-thousand-dollar machine, by the way.”

“Bill me.” I grab my bag off the floor where I dropped it and sling it over my shoulder. My legs feel unreliable. Everything south of my belly button is throbbing and I am having a hard time walking in a straight line.

I’m halfway to the door when his hand catches my elbow. I spin around, ready to snap, but he’s not pulling me back. He’s pressing something into my palm.

It’s the camera, with the attached battery pack still dangling from it.

“Keep it,” he instructs. “Put it back where you found it.”

I look down at it, then back up at him. “You’re joking.”

“I sleep better when I can see you.”

His face is dead serious, though. And instead of doing the sane thing and telling him to shove it up his ass… I reclaim the camera and tuck it in my purse.

I don’t say a word. Neither does he. I just put my back to Kir and walk out past Madison, who gives me a bright smile and alittle wave that I don’t return. I don’t stop walking until I hit the street.

32

JILLIAN

“I’m taking back the crown / I’m all dressed up and naked / I see what’s mine and take it”

— “Emperor’s New Clothes” by Panic! at the Disco

I don’t go straight home after leaving Kir’s building. I walk for a while, down Sixth, then west toward the river, then south for no reason at all. It’s essential to just keep moving so I can burn off whatever toxic residue is still buzzing under my skin from Kir’s hand inside my jeans and his mouth against my ear. The absolute nerve of him to make me want him while I’m trying so very hard to hate him! How dare he?

By the time I actually make it back to my apartment, it’s after seven and I’m bone-tired. I lock the door behind me, then just to be sure, I slide home the deadbolt and the security chain. I drop my bag on the counter, then bend in half to rest my forehead on the cool marble. I stand there like that for a minute doing absolutely nothing before I let out an earth-shattering sigh, straighten up, and wander into my bedroom.

I stop a foot inside the door and look up. The vent above the closet door is dark. No red light. The camera remains in my purse, where I put it after Kir pressed it into my hand. I haven’t decided what to do with it yet. That’s a problem for Future Jillian.

I change out of yesterday’s wrinkled clothes and pull on a soft, oversized T-shirt and a pair of cotton pajama shorts. The shirt is from freshman year, with NYU stamped in proud purple across the front. To be honest, I don’t know why I still have it. I don’t keep much from that period of my life. Most of it went into garbage bags during the move out of the dorms. I threw it all away and didn’t look back.

Somehow, the shirt survived the purge.

Sighing again at an obnoxious volume, as if that’ll banish my aimless thoughts, I brush my teeth, wash my face, and get into bed, even though it’s not even eight P.M. yet. But then, because my brain hates me and wants me to be miserable forever, I reach for my phone and open the photo album I keep buried deep, tucked inside a folder called “Tax Docs 2019,” inside another folder called “Misc.” Nobody would ever find it by accident. That’s the point.