Chapter 4
4
Pia
T here’s a knock at the door.
Again.
I startle mid-mascara swipe, nearly poking myself in the eye. My heart does a little stutter-step. I don’t have to rush to the door to check the peephole. I already know it’s him.
Ethan.
I’m still in my towel, my hair wrapped in one of the big hotel-grade ones my uncle stocked the condo with, and I’m very much not ready to be seen by a man whose jaw flexed last night when I teased him about being a very magnifique replica of something that definitely wasn’t fatherly.
I’m too shaky to put the wand back into the tube, so I abandon it on my bathroom vanity, walk down the hallway of the apartment—a third the size of his—and open the door just a crack.
He stands there in his usual dark suit, somehow even more dangerous with that coffee mug in one hand and a hint of very real exhaustion on his face.
But when his eyes scan over me—bare shoulders, still-damp skin—I swear the air gets heavy and deep enough to need a snorkel to swim through.
“I made breakfast,” he says, voice gravelly like he’s still waking up. Or maybe like he didn’t sleep at all. “Come upstairs. Eat.”
“You’re feeding me again?” I ask, lifting my brows.
He shrugs. “You clearly can’t be trusted not to eat ice cream for breakfast too, since I know you don’t have anything in there.”
I smirk, inch the door open a little more. “That’s true.”
We both go quiet for a beat.
And then—like a weight between us—last night slides into the space. The food. The low lighting. The heat behind his gaze when he asked me if this was all some sort of honey trap.
The way he looked like he might kiss me when I tumbled into nervous French. Or might leave the country to stop himself.
And that line. “I’m old enough to be your father.”
He’d said it like it was a warning. Like it should’ve turned me cold.
Instead, it had done something... else.
Something he didn’t know made me reach beneath the waistband of my sleep shorts repeatedly when I was in boarding school.
Something that still makes me touch that too-hot place between my thighs whenever I think of it.
I’d looked him right in the eye and said that awful, awful hot thing.
And then I—oh God, I shut the door in his face.
Mortifying.
I’d thought he’d be furious with me for that insult. Except… he’s back.
Looking at me like I’m made of matches and he’s half a second from striking.
He lifts the mug to his lips, but his eyes don’t leave mine—even though I sense he’s aware of every inch of my body, just as conscious as I am of it. “How long do you need? Ten minutes?”
“ Cinq ,” I say, barely above a whisper.
His lips twitch. “You’re sure that’s enough time to get dressed like a respectable employee and not an underdressed little?—”
“ Monsieur!” I gasp, scandalized, though heat curls under my skin and gathers between my thighs. “You didn’t just?—”
He smirks, and my breath catches at the heart-stopping hotness of him. I mourn when he finally turns away. “Five minutes, Pia. Or I’m coming back down to get you, towel or not.”
The door clicks shut behind him, and I stand there in the living room with my heart banging against my ribs like it’s trying to get out.
Mon Dieu.
What is happening?
He’s not touching me. He hasn’t kissed me. But it feels like something irreversible has already been set in motion.
Like we’re both standing at the edge of something we’re not supposed to want—but do.
And now I have four and a half minutes left to get dressed and not look like the girl who absolutely, maybe, definitely wants to kiss her boss before breakfast.
* * *
Breakfast was almost too good—soft scrambled eggs, thick toast, and bacon so crispy I moaned before I could stop myself.
Ethan sent me a hooded glance but didn’t say anything, though I caught the sharp flick of his eyes toward my mouth, the grip of his fork tightening just slightly.
Now, in the car, the windows are fogged just enough to feel like a secret, he’s typing something on his phone with surgeon-like focus, but every few minutes, he glances over at me—and not in the way a boss should look at his intern.
It’s darker. Hotter .
Like he’s still thinking about what I look like wrapped in a towel, and not just whether I can spell vinaigrette correctly.
I try to focus on the grocery list Maggie just texted to remind me about—milk, pasta, cheese, actual food, something green for credibility, and ice cream of course because a girl can’t have enough ice cream—but my hand shakes every time I add something, because I can feel the tension pressing between us like the leather seats aren’t even there.
He finally speaks, voice low and casual, but with a thread of authority I feel all the way down to my toes. “You’re sitting in on the client meeting this morning.”
My head jerks toward him. “Me?”
He doesn’t look over this time. Just gives a small nod. “Yes, you. Unless you want me to ask another intern?”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even finished speaking, the spike of jealousy through my belly telling me how much I hate the thought of Ethan’s attention on anyone else but me. “No need. I’ll be ready.”
His eyes gleam, I think with approval. But beneath that I see something else. The very thing that quotes every word with a double meaning.
The very dangerous thing that preens to be the subject of his focus.
The thought that for the first time in my life, someone sees me.
* * *
The conference room is all glass and steel and money.
The kind of place where billion-dollar deals get made over still water and colder smiles.
I sit one seat down from Ethan—close enough to feel his presence, far enough to pretend I’m not completely, shamefully aware of every inch of him in that impossibly sharp tailored suit.
That I didn’t spot the thick bulge behind his lounge pants last night and replay that image over and over in my head once I’d dragged my sorry ass from the door and crawled into my bed.
Across the table, the clients are already talking—big energy, sharp suits, one woman with a massive rock on her finger I can’t stop staring at.
Ethan is calm, collected. Ruthless when he needs to be.
I watch him handle them like a violin—tight control, perfect pitch. No wasted words. He lays out how he’s going to make them richer than they already are, and they lap up every word. Because he’s a genius with a track record to prove it.
But then—every so often—his hand shifts.
His pinky brushing the table near mine.
His gaze flicks down to my notes, then back to the clients, his jaw tightening just a little like he knows I’m clocking everything. Like he knows how in awe of him I am.
And I am. God, I am.
I read somewhere once that power is sexy.
I scoffed then. I’m not scoffing now.
I lean forward once to whisper something—just a small clause I noticed in the contract summary. “Page five. The indemnity clause—they haven’t agreed it yet.”
He doesn’t answer. Just glances sideways, slow, deliberate.
His voice when he speaks again is deeper than before.
“You’ll need to agree the clause before we move forward,” he says to the clients. “Standard protection, nothing unusual.”
But his hand… it shifts again. Closer. Not touching, but there . Like a promise.
My heart is trying to hammer its way out of my blouse.
I force myself to sip water, to keep my back straight, to pretend I don’t feel like I’ve just passed some invisible test I didn’t know I was taking.
And then, as the clients wrap up and begin to leave, Ethan stands.
Tall. Controlled. Insanely hot.
He places a hand at the small of my back—barely there, barely touching.
“Come,” he murmurs. “You’re sitting in on the debrief.”
Come.
Tu vas me tuer, I think wildly. You’re going to kill me.
And the worst part?
I think I’ll thank him for it.