Chapter 10 - Menlow
Kirsten has been chewing on the same pen cap for forty-seven minutes.
It’s been three days since the family gathering, and something is clearly wrong. She scrolls through a document, frowns, scrolls back up, frowns deeper. She pinches her brows together as she clicks between tabs and lets out a frustrated breath. Then she starts the whole cycle again.
She’s struggling. And she’s too stubborn to ask for help.
“Problem?” I finally ask.
She doesn’t look up as she snaps, “No.”
“You’ve been staring at that same spreadsheet for close to an hour.”
That gets her attention. She turns to face me, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve been counting?”
“I notice things.”
“That’s not creepy at all.”
I push back from my desk and walk over to hers. She immediately angles her monitor away, like a student hiding test answers. The move is so childish that it almost makes me burst out laughing.
“Kirsten.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got it under control.”
“You clearly don’t.”
She sets her jaw. “I said I’ve got it.”
I lean against the edge of her desk, close enough to catch the scent of her shampoo. Something floral and utterly distracting. I force myself to focus on the task at hand instead of the way that scent makes me want to lean closer.
“What’s the assignment?”
She sighs, finally giving up the pretense. “Marcus asked me to analyze the vendor contracts from the Westbrook account. I’m supposed to cross-reference them with our existing supplier agreements and flag any conflicts or redundancies.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know your company’s vendor protocols.” She gestures at her screen with obvious frustration. “I don’t know your pricing structures or which relationships are priority versus expendable. I’m looking at hundreds of contracts, and I have no framework to evaluate them.”
I nod. This makes sense. She’s brilliant at data analysis—her old work proves that beyond any doubt.
The reports she produced for the previous management were flawless, and her attention to detail is remarkable.
But this task requires institutional knowledge she doesn’t have.
Knowledge about my company, my systems, and my way of doing things.
None of that was part of her original job description, and nobody bothered to train her on our processes after the acquisition.
“I can handle that.”
“No,” she replies, shaking her head.
“Why not?”
“Because if you do it for me, I don’t learn anything. I’ll figure it out. It’ll just take longer.”
“How much longer?”
She pauses and squints as if she’s mentally working it out. “A week. Maybe two.”
“Marcus needs it by Friday.”
“Then Marcus can wait.”
This time, I do smile. I can’t help it. “Marcus reports to me. If I tell him to wait, he waits. But that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is that you’re wasting time reinventing the wheel when I could teach you the system in an afternoon.”
She considers this. I can see the war happening behind her eyes—pride versus practicality, independence versus common sense. It’s fascinating to watch, even if it is a little maddening.
“If you teach me,” she begins with hesitation, “you actually teach me. You don’t just give me the answers and expect me to memorize them.”
“Agreed.”
“And you don’t hover.”
“I’ll try.”
“And you don’t get condescending when I ask questions.”
“I’m never condescending.”
She snorts. The sound is unladylike and completely genuine. “You’re condescending all the time.”
“Name one instance.”
“Yesterday, when I asked about the filing system, you literally said ‘it’s quite simple, really’ before explaining something that took twenty minutes.”
I wince. She’s right. I did say that. “Fair point. I’ll work on that.”
She stares at me for a long moment. I hold her gaze, refusing to look away first. Finally, she uncrosses her arms and pulls her chair back.
“Fine. Teach me.”
I grab my own chair and roll it over to her desk. The wheels squeak against the hardwood floor. We’re close now, with our knees almost touching. I can see the faint freckles across her nose that she usually covers with makeup. I could count each individual eyelash if I wanted to.
I don’t want to. That would be strange.
Focus.
“Pull up the Westbrook contracts,” I tell her. “Let’s start with the raw data.”
For the next two hours, I walk her through my company’s vendor evaluation framework.
I explain the tiered system we use to categorize suppliers—platinum, gold, silver, and bronze, based on volume, reliability, and strategic importance.
I show her how to identify overlapping services and calculate potential cost savings, then teach her the questions to ask, the red flags to watch for, the nuances that don’t show up in any manual.
She’s a fast learner. Faster than I expected, and I expected a lot.
Her questions are probing and specific, designed to extract maximum information with minimum words.
The notes she takes use a shorthand only she can read, but more than once, she makes connections I didn’t anticipate.
She links patterns across contracts that even I hadn’t noticed.
Her photographic memory is remarkable. I mention a clause structure once, and she recalls it perfectly forty minutes later when it becomes relevant again. An obscure vendor code I reference offhand gets pulled up without checking her notes.
By noon, she’s tackling contracts on her own. I’ve moved back to my desk, but I keep one eye on her progress. Every thirty minutes or so, she calls me over to check something. Each time, I have to remind myself to keep an appropriate distance. Each time, I fail.
“This vendor has two contracts with conflicting terms,” she announces around one o’clock. “One from Westbrook, one from us. Which takes precedence?”
I lean over her shoulder to look at the screen and brace my hand against the back of her chair while her hair brushes my forearm, soft and carrying that same floral scent.
“Ours,” I manage. My voice sounds normal. Good. “We’re the acquiring company. But flag it anyway—legal should review before we terminate.”
“Got it.”
She makes a note. I don’t move. Neither does she.
The moment stretches. I’m acutely aware of how close we are, how easy it would be to turn my head and—
“Anything else?” I ask, cutting off that dangerous train of thought.
“Not yet.”
I should step back and return to my desk. Let her work in peace. Instead, I stay where I am for another beat, watching her fingers work on the keyboard. No wasted movement. Pure competence.
It takes several seconds, but I force myself to move away, back to my desk, back to my own work. But I’m hyperaware of every sound she makes—the click of her mouse, the tap of her keys, and the soft sigh she releases when she solves a particularly tricky problem.
This is becoming a problem.
At two o’clock, my phone goes off, alerting me to a meeting with the acquisition team. I’d forgotten about it completely, which is unlike me. I never forget meetings.
“I have to go,” I tell her. “Will you be all right on your own?”
She doesn’t look up from her screen. “I’ve been on my own for twenty-five years. I think I can manage an hour.”
“Two hours. Possibly three.”
“Even better. Less hovering.”
I grab my jacket from the back of my chair and head for the door. At the threshold, I pause.
“If you need anything—”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“The vendor codes for—”
“Already memorized them.”
Of course she did.
“Right. I’ll be back.”
The meeting drags on for exactly two hours and forty-seven minutes.
Budget projections, integration timelines, and personnel assessments.
I contribute where necessary and count the minutes until I can leave.
My mind keeps drifting back to the office.
To her. To the way she chews on that pen cap when she’s concentrating.
This is ridiculous. I’m a grown man who runs a multimillion-dollar company. I’ve negotiated deals with oligarchs and criminals and politicians who would sell their own mothers for power. A woman with freckles and a stubborn streak should not be this distracting.
And yet.
When the meeting finally ends, I head straight back to the office. I’m walking faster than normal, telling myself it’s because I have work to do. Nothing to do with her.
The office is empty when I arrive.
Her desk is neat, computer still on with the screen locked, notes stacked in a tidy pile. But her chair is pushed back, and her jacket is missing from its hook.
I check my phone. No messages.
I’m about to text her when I hear it. Laughter, coming from down the hall. Bright and light and completely unfamiliar.
I follow the sound to the break room. Through the glass door, I see Kirsten standing by the coffee machine. A man I recognize from the analytics department is leaning against the counter beside her, saying something that makes her smile.
Not just smile.
Laugh.
She throws her head back, and her entire body shakes with it. The sound is unguarded and joyful, and nothing like the careful responses she gives me.
Something ugly curls in my gut. Hot and irrational and completely unwelcome.
The man—Peterson, I think his last name is—touches her arm as he delivers another punchline. She laughs again, holding her stomach. Looking at the two of them, it’s like they’ve known each other for years. And maybe they have. I’m not sure how long that guy has worked here.
What I do know is she’s never laughed like that with me. Not once. I’ve made her smirk and roll her eyes. I’ve earned that unladylike snort I’m starting to find endearing. But this full-bodied, joyful laughter? Never.
I push through the door, and they both turn.
“Mr. Karpov.” Peterson straightens immediately. “I was just—we were just—”
“Taking a break,” Kirsten finishes. Her smile fades when she sees my face. “Is something wrong?”
Everything is wrong. But I can’t say that. There’s no way to coherently explain the irrational anger bubbling up inside me without breaking the boundaries we agreed to and revealing our relationship.
Peterson isn’t Bratva. He’s just some guy from analytics who probably went to a state school, drives a sensible sedan and has no idea that the woman he’s flirting with is married.
Married to me.
“The meeting ended early,” I explain. “I need you back in the office.”
“I was just getting coffee.”
“You can get coffee later.”
Her eyebrows rise. I can see the question forming on her lips, but she doesn’t ask it. Not in front of Peterson.
“Fine.” She turns to the other man. “Nice talking to you, Derek.”
“You too, Kirsten. We should grab lunch sometime. There’s this great Thai place around the corner—”
“She’s busy,” I cut in.
Kirsten’s head whips toward me, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits.
“Actually,” she says sweetly, “I’d love that. Text me the details.”
She brushes past me on her way out the door. I follow, leaving Derek standing alone by the coffee machine, looking confused.
The walk back to our office is silent. I can feel the anger radiating off her with every step, but I don’t care. She was laughing with him, touching his arm, throwing her head back, and acting like they were old friends.
We step inside. She closes the door behind us with more force than necessary.
“What the hell was that?” she demands.
I hold my arms out and ask, “What was what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. You practically dragged me out of there.”
“I asked you to return to work.”
“You were rude to Derek.”
“I was direct.”
“You were a jerk.”
I sit down at my desk and pull up my email. “Peterson can survive a little rudeness. He’ll get over it.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point, Kirsten?”
She storms over to my desk and plants both hands on the surface. “The point is that I’m allowed to have a conversation with a coworker without you swooping in like some jealous—”
“I’m not jealous,” I insist, but even I don’t buy it.
“You literally told him I was busy when I’m clearly not!”
“You have work to do.”
“I was taking a five-minute break!”
“It looked like more than five minutes to me.”
Her nostrils flare. “So you were watching. Before you came in, you were standing out there watching us.”
I don’t answer. I can’t, because yes, I was watching. And I don’t have a good excuse for it.
“That’s creepy,” she accuses. “That’s textbook creepy behavior.”
“I was concerned about your whereabouts. You weren’t at your desk.”
“I was in the break room getting coffee like a normal person.”
I turn back to my computer. “Fine. Get your coffee. Chat with Derek. I don’t care.”
“You obviously do care, or you wouldn’t have made a scene.”
“That wasn’t a scene.”
“Then what would you call it?”
I’m losing control of this conversation. I can feel it slipping away from me, but I can’t stop myself. The image of her laughing with Peterson keeps replaying in my head—that sound, that joy, given so freely to a stranger when I have to fight for every smile.
“I’d call it reminding you that you have a job to do. As any boss is entitled to do.”
“I know I have a job to do. I’ve been doing it all day while you were in your meeting.”
“And I’m sure Derek was a great help with that.”
She goes still.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
“No. Say what you mean.”
I meet her eyes. “I mean that maybe you should focus less on making friends and more on finishing your assignments.”
The temperature in the room seems to drop. I’ve crossed a line, and I know it. But I can’t take the words back now.
“You don’t get to manage my social life,” she grinds out through gritted teeth. “You tricked me into this marriage. You moved me into your home. You promoted me to an office where you can watch my every move. But you do not get to control who I talk to.”
“I’m not trying to control—”
“You are. That’s exactly what you’re doing, and I won’t stand for it.”
She snatches her jacket from the hook and heads for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“Kirsten—”
“I need a minute. Or an hour. However long it takes for you to stop being insufferable.”
The door slams behind her.
I sit alone in the silence, replaying every word of our conversation. Where did I go wrong? Why did watching her laugh with another man make me feel like something was being stolen from me?
I don’t have answers.
I’m not sure I want them.