Chapter 10 #2
“Disappointing. Contractors are always trying to hand out diamonds.”
“I suspected as much.”
His mouth curved, but the amusement did not fully soften him. “You understand why the training matters.”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
I rolled my eyes before I could stop myself.
His face stilled. The amusement left his mouth, though not his eyes. I tried not to notice, but his hands flexed too. My stomach dropped. Then, traitorously, lower than that, something else stirred.
“You rolled your eyes at me,” he growled.
I straightened. “I did not.”
He just stared at me.
I folded instantly. “Fine. I did.”
“After your boss warned you yesterday about being pouty at work, young lady?”
There it was again.
He knew exactly what those words did to me, and I could see the knowledge in the controlled stillness of his face as his hand closed around the pen, and how his voice had dropped just enough to make the title feel less like a correction and more like a touch beneath the table.
My core fluttered with need so intense I had to press my thighs together.
I should have apologized. A serious employee would have apologized.
A smart woman would have apologized. A woman who wanted to avoid scandal, ruin, and being emotionally disassembled by her godfather-boss would have said, ‘You’re right, I’m sorry, the training was necessary and I’ll be more respectful, sir. ’
Instead, I looked directly at him and said, “I expect an equally entertaining day tomorrow.”
His jaw tightened.
“Avery.”
“Yes, Mr. Rowe?”
His eyes held mine.
The title came out softer than it should have. I knew it. He knew it. Somewhere outside the office, Benjamin probably felt a disturbance in the air and reached for a fire extinguisher.
Callum set the pen down carefully. “Are you trying to test me?”
I swallowed. “Would that be a bad idea?”
“Yes.”
I waited, but he did not look away.
“And?” I asked.
“And you seem to be doing it anyway.”
My pulse pounded in my throat. My notebook felt suddenly ridiculous in my lap, a prop held by a woman pretending this was still about training modules.
“I’m not trying to be difficult,” I asserted, which was a lie.
“No?”
“I’m trying to understand the rules.”
“The rules are not complicated,” he chided, his eyes darkening.
“They feel complicated.”
Heat climbed my neck.
Callum stood. The movement made my entire body go on alert.
He walked around the desk, slow enough that it did not feel like pacing, but controlled enough that it did not feel casual.
I stayed seated because he had not told me to stand, and because my knees were not presently trustworthy.
He stopped a few feet away, leaning back against the front edge of his desk, arms loosely folded and commanding way too much of my attention.
The position put him closer to me, just near enough that I could see the pulse at his wrist and the faint tension in his forearm where his hand tucked under his opposite arm.
“I am going to say this once,” he warned.
I looked up at him.
“At work, you will take the training seriously. You will take Benjamin seriously. You will take Dana seriously. You will not roll your eyes at me because you want to find out what I’ll do.”
My mouth went dry.
“I wasn’t—”
His eyes narrowed and I stopped. There was no anger in him. That was what made it so much worse. He was not offended. He was not wounded. He was drawing the line between us.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
“Yes.”
His voice lowered. “Avery.”
My hands tightened on the notebook. “Yes, I understand.”
“Good girl.”
The words went through me like a lightning strike.
I looked away first.
For a few seconds, neither of us moved. Then he exhaled, and something in him shifted back toward restraint.
I saw him choose it. Saw the moment he took the heat in the room and folded it carefully into some locked interior drawer where men like him stored everything inconvenient.
It made me feel both relieved and bereft.
“Do you need a ride home?” he asked.
“No,” I answered. “I can take the train.”
“At this hour?”
“It’s barely six.”
“After a long day.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
His eyes flicked over me. “I’m aware.”
That quieted me immediately. The words were not flirtation exactly. They were not safe either. Callum seemed to feel it too, because he pushed away from the desk.
“We’ll discuss this tomorrow,” he said dismissively.
“Discuss what?”
“Your attitude toward training.”
“I have an excellent attitude toward training.”
“Avery.”
“Fine. A developing attitude.”
“Better.”
I stood, clutching the notebook to my chest like a shield.
He walked me toward the door, and the movement felt absurdly formal after the charged quiet between us.
I expected disappointment to hit first, but it was shame that came instead.
What was I doing? Testing him in his office like a bored, reckless juvenile?
Responding to correction like it was foreplay?
Letting a man who had given me a chance and made the terms of that chance clear become the center of some dangerous little game neither of us could afford?
He reached the door before I did, then paused and turned back. For one second, he looked almost tired.
“I want you to do well here,” he said.
The words cut through the heat.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I nodded.
“I mean that, Avery.”
“I know you do.”
His expression softened, and that was worse than the firmness.
The tenderness made me feel young in a way I hated, not little, but exposed, vulnerable.
Like he could see every ugly little reason I had wanted to provoke him.
I wanted attention. I wanted confirmation.
I wanted proof that the past few days had not been something I had invented out of hormones, loneliness, and one good dinner.
“I’m sorry,” I offered quietly.
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he lifted a hand and placed it on my shoulder.
It was meant to be steadying. A godfather’s touch.
A mentor’s reassurance with nothing inappropriate about it.
He only set his hand there for one brief second, warm through the thin fabric of my blouse, and I felt his restraint in everything about it.
My body did not care about his intentions.
The heat of his hand moved down my arm, across my chest, low in my belly. My breath caught before I could stop it. His fingers tightened by one involuntary degree, and then he removed his hand as if he had touched a flame.
We both looked at the door.
“I should go.” I rushed the words out but didn’t move.
“Yes,” he agreed.
He turned the handle and opened the door halfway.
Outside, I could see Benjamin’s desk, empty for once, his chair pushed in, the hallway beyond it quiet in the after-hours hush.
Most of the floor had emptied while we were inside.
Somewhere far away, a phone rang once and stopped.
The office lights reflected softly in the glass walls.
The path out was open. Callum held the door and I took one step toward it, but then, his hand moved and he closed it again.
The soft click of the latch sounded loud.
I froze.
He stood behind me for an interminable moment, close enough that I could feel his presence before he moved. Then the lock turned.
Every cell in my body stilled.
Callum stepped in, facing me, his back to the door now, one hand still near the lock. His eyes were darker than I had ever seen them. He looked disciplined and dangerous, which was making my core flutter with traitorous need.
“Do you want me to unlock it?” he asked quietly.
My throat closed. He was giving me an out. He was giving me a way to step back into the world where nothing had happened yet, where this was still enigmatic looks, careful warnings, and a private fantasy I could take home and hate myself for.
I looked at the lock.
Then at him.
I could not answer.
Callum watched the blush rise in my face. Watched my silence. Watched my fingers tighten around the notebook until the cardboard cover bent.
His voice dropped.
“I didn’t think so.”
He gave me one second.
Maybe less.
Then he reached for me.
His hand slid into the hair at the back of my head, fingers threading through the loose pieces that had escaped the knot, firm enough to make me gasp and careful enough that I could have pulled away if I wanted to, but I did not.
My notebook fell from my hand and hit the floor with a flat, forgotten sound.
I stepped toward him at the same moment he drew me in, and then his mouth was on mine.
There was nothing polite, professional, or godfatherly about the kiss.
It was thorough and hot and devastating, like he had spent days deciding exactly how he would ruin me if he ever let himself start.
His mouth moved over mine once, testing, and when I opened for him, his grip tightened in my hair and a low sound that went straight through me rumbled from his chest. He kissed me deeper, with a ravenous hunger that made my knees weaken.
His other hand came to my waist, dragging me closer until I felt the hard line of his cock through our clothes, the proof of what I had suspected, imagined, and tried not to want.
I let a small sound escape into his mouth, and he stopped, but didn’t pull away. His lips stayed near mine. His breath was rough, his hand still in my hair, his body held with such violent restraint I could feel the tremor of it.
“Tell me to stop,” he implored.
I opened my eyes to see that he looked wrecked.
Callum Rowe, who had spent the past few days looking like the epitome of self-control sculpted into the shape of a man, stood with his forehead almost touching mine, his eyes holding mine captive, as if letting go required more strength than holding on.
I should have said something sensible.
Instead, I whispered, “No.”
His eyes closed briefly.
Then he kissed me again.