Page 127

“He didn’t do anything.”

Except not reach out.

Because if this was a book, that was the chance for the hero to prove he cared, to insist on checking in on the heroine, to make sure she was okay.

But this wasn’t a romance.

It never would be.

He’d made that very clear from the beginning. It was my own damn fault for letting some small part of myself hope for more. For always being a hopeless damn romantic. With an emphasis on the ‘hopeless.’

“You have the same look you had when you found out that book series you loved was never going to be finished because the author just dropped off the face of the earth.”

“I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep.”

“Because of all the banging?”

“No. Yes. Sort of. But not how you’re thinking.”

“Listen, we both know I have literal eternity to get this information out of you. And that I won’t stop. So just save us some time.”

“It was perfect. But then he kind of pulled away. Then I pulled away and hid away.”

“And he didn’t break down the door like some book boyfriend might.”

“No. Yes. I mean, I wasn’t expecting him to break down the door. It wasn’t like I was bleeding to death in there. I just… I wanted him to want to know why I went away. Even though he was very clear that it wasn’t going to be like that between us.”

“Why did you run away?”

“Because I know we needed some space.”

“Is this because of the work thing again?”

I was getting dangerously close to lying to my friend here. “Yeah.”

“I read the employee manual cover-to-cover when that warlock started his podcast. There’s nothing in it about coworkers dating. Not even about someone dating a subordinate.” She paused to sip her coffee. “Of course, he was a magic addict who was too high on the stuff to perform. Though, he knew a good spell or two to make up for it.”

I remembered that podcast episode well.

It led to thousands of people in the comment section deciding they needed to date warlocks who could make you climax just with a demand.

“I know it’s not against the rules, per se. It’s just… complicated.”

“What is?”

“Sex.”

“Is it? Or are you making it complicated?”

“Even if it wasn’t complicated, Silas made sure he told me that this is not a happily-ever-after kind of thing. And judging by how I was feeling last night, a large part of me wants that, not just the physical stuff.”

Tess exhaled hard through her nose.

“No, I get it.”

Her gaze was out the windshield but looked a million miles away. A million miles down, most likely. Down in hell where her ex (and a large chunk of her heart) were.

“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”