Page 72 of Sexting His Assistant

The knowledge goes through me like a spark.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he says quietly.

I know exactly what he means. I do it anyway, and look at him. “Do what?”

His grip tightens by a fraction. “Pretend you don’t understand me.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“You always are.”

That should offend me.

It does. A little. Mostly, it hurts because it feels true.

His thumb moves once over the inside of my wrist. Not a caress. Not quite. A small, absent motion that makes my breath catch anyway.

His eyes drop to my mouth.

This time, there’s no conference table. No board members waiting outside. No gunfire. No Misha in the chair beside us.

Only Luka in bed, wounded and too close, and me with my hand on his bare chest, trying to remember every reason I should pull away.

There are many. My brother. My job. The women in the diary.

The fact that Luka Kazan is not a man anyone touches lightly and walks away unchanged.

His hand slides from my wrist to my fingers. “Nina,” he says. My name is rougher this time.

I lean in before I can think better of it.

He does too. The space between us shrinks to almost nothing.

I can feel his breath now. Warm. Slow. Too controlled. His gaze is locked on my mouth, and I know if I stay one more second, he’ll either kiss me or I will kiss him, and then the one boundary he’s not crossed will be gone too.

My phone buzzes on the bedside table.

I jerk back like I have been caught.

Luka’s hand falls away.

I stand so quickly the bowl rattles on the tray. “I should go.”

His expression closes immediately.

Just like that, the door behind his eyes shuts, and Luka Kazan returns in pieces: the control, the distance, the unreadable mouth.

“You should,” he says.

It hurts more than it should.

I nod, because apparently, I’ve decided dignity is still worth attempting at this late stage of disaster.

“Tell Doctor Mirov if the pain gets worse,” I say.

“I will not.”

“Then tell your mother.”