Page 21 of The Endless Want

“He won’t,” I interrupt, too quickly.

She raises a brow.

“… I won’t let him,” I amend.

Nadia smiles faintly, as if she sees too much in that answer. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Back at headquarters, I return to the logistics Liam abandoned me in the middle of—shipment tallies, inventory discrepancies, cross-referenced routes. I’ve barely started to settle back into the work when I feel a shift in the air behind me.

Declan.

He doesn’t say a word at first, just leans over my shoulder and narrows his eyes at my screen. “You miscalculated the top-line numbers,” he mutters.

My jaw sets. “No, I accounted for the Italian add-ons.”

He makes a low sound in his throat. “They changed the order this morning.”

“Well, no one told me.”

“I’m telling you now,” he snaps.

I breathe slowly, refusing to rise to his mood. “Then I’ll update it.”

“You should’ve anticipated it.”

“Declan,” I warn, “don’t start.”

But he does. He points out half a dozen tiny details—some real, some imagined—until irritation burns up my spine.

“I’m trying,” I bite out.

“Try harder.”

Heat flares in my chest. “You don’t get to talk to me like that just because Liam took this off your plate.”

“That’s exactly why I get to talk like that,” he fires back. “Because I actually know how to run this operation.”

“Then go tell Liam,” I snap. “Tell him you want your old job back instead of hovering over me like a guard dog with control issues.”

Declan’s eyes flash, something dark and unguarded. “I’m not hovering.”

“You haven’t stopped criticizing me since you walked in.”

“Because you’re not paying attention.”

“I am paying attention,” I say, standing up and taking a step closer, hands shaking with restrained fury. “I’m paying attention to everything but you. You don’t get to treat me like I’m incompetent just because you’re frustrated.”

“It’s not frustration,” he says through clenched teeth.

“What is it then?”

“It’s that they marked your car and you drove it here anyway.” His voice drops. “It’s that I have counted the exits in every room you have walked into for two years and you have never once noticed me doing it.”

The room goes very quiet. Somewhere below us a door closes.

I should say something professional. I should say something that puts this back where it belongs.

“Declan.”