Chapter 12 - Menlow
Kissing Kirsten is like coming home to a place I didn’t know I’d been missing.
I press her harder against the desk, with one hand tangled in her hair while the other holding onto her hip. She makes a sound low in her throat—half gasp, half moan—and I swallow it whole. She claws at my shoulders, pulling me closer, and I lose myself in the heat of her mouth.
This is what I’ve been craving since that night at the bar. This is what I’ve been denying myself for weeks. Having her in my arms again, feeling her body arch into mine, hearing those little sounds she makes when I kiss the corner of her mouth, her jaw, and the soft skin beneath her ear.
I trail my lips down her neck, and she tilts her head back to give me better access. She slides her hands from my shoulders to my chest and works at the buttons of my shirt. I groan against her throat when she gets the first two undone and presses her palms against bare skin.
“Menlow.” My name comes out breathless and desperate.
I capture her mouth again, kissing her harder as I move my hand from her hip to her thigh, pushing up the hem of her skirt. She gasps when my fingers find bare skin above her stockings, and I nearly lose my mind at the sound.
God, I want her. Right here on this desk, consequences be damned.
I’m just sliding my hand higher when she goes rigid.
“Wait.” She pushes at my chest. “Wait. Stop.”
I freeze immediately and pull back to give her space.
She’s breathing hard, her lips swollen from my kisses, her hair a mess from my fingers. She looks both thoroughly kissed and completely panicked.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“We can’t do this.”
“We were doing it pretty well a second ago.”
“That’s not—” She shakes her head and smooths down her skirt with trembling hands. “This can’t happen again.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re my boss.” She straightens her blouse, refusing to meet my eyes. “This is inappropriate on about fifteen different levels.”
“I’m also your husband.”
“On paper.” She finally looks at me, and I see the walls going back up. Brick by brick, she’s rebuilding every barrier I just broke through. “Only on paper. That’s what we agreed.”
I want to argue, to remind her that she kissed me back with just as much hunger. And that our agreement went out the window the moment she gasped my name.
But something in her face stops me. She’s not just flustered. She’s upset. Genuinely upset.
“Kirsten—”
“I need to go home.” She grabs her jacket from the chair and her bag from the desk. “I’ll take a cab.”
“Let me at least—”
“No. I need… I need some space.”
She’s out the door before I can respond, leaving me alone in the office with mussed hair, an open shirt, and a growing sense that I’ve made a terrible mistake.
I replay the last few days in my head. The fight about Derek. The way I dragged her out of the break room like a jealous idiot. The cold silence that followed.
She’s not just reacting to the kiss. She’s reacting to everything. My possessiveness, my control, my inability to treat her like an equal partner instead of a problem to be managed.
I scrub a hand over my face and button my shirt.
I need to fix this.
The next morning, I send flowers to her desk. A massive arrangement of white roses and peonies, elegant and understated. The card reads simply: I’m sorry.
She glances at them when she arrives, reads the card, and sets it aside without comment. We work in silence all day.
Day two, I try jewelry. A delicate gold bracelet with a small diamond charm. I leave it on her desk before she arrives.
She opens the box, looks at it for a long moment, then closes it and puts it in her drawer. Still no comment. Still no thaw.
Day three, I send chocolate from a boutique shop downtown. The good stuff, hand-selected truffles in an elegant box.
She doesn’t even open it.
By day four, I’m running out of ideas. Flowers, jewelry, chocolate—the traditional apology trifecta has failed spectacularly. She accepts each gift with the same detached politeness and continues treating me like a stranger who happens to share her office.
I’m staring at my computer, trying to focus on quarterly projections, when her voice cuts through the silence.
“You can’t buy your way out of everything, you know.”
I look up. She’s standing in front of my desk with her arms crossed and the unopened chocolate box dangling in her hand.
“I’m not trying to buy my way out of anything.”
“Then what are you trying to do?” She sets the box on my desk with a thud. “Flowers. Jewelry. Chocolate. It’s like you’re following some kind of apology checklist.”
“I was attempting to show you that I’m sorry.”
“For what, exactly?”
I know the answer. I’ve known it since she walked out of the office that night. But admitting it out loud means facing just how badly I’ve behaved.
“For… the other night. The kiss.”
“Is that all?” she scoffs.
I could tell her the truth. Could acknowledge every mistake I’ve catalogued in my head over the past four days. Instead, I take the coward’s way out.
“What else would there be?”
She lets out a frustrated breath. “Forget it.”
She turns to go back to her desk, but I stand and move to block her path. I can’t let her walk away thinking I don’t understand.
“You’re right,” I admit. “I was out of line.”
She scoffs and says, “Out of line doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. Truly sorry. Not just for the kiss, but for all of it.”
She studies my face, searching for sincerity. I hold her gaze and let her look.
“Gifts aren’t going to fix this,” she finally states. “You can’t just throw money at a problem and expect it to disappear.”
“Then tell me what will fix it.”
“I don’t know.” She sighs and uncrosses her arms to hold up the box. “But not this. Not flowers and jewelry and whatever else you’ve got planned.”
I consider her words. She’s right. I’ve been approaching this like a business negotiation—identify the problem, apply resources, and achieve the desired outcome. But she’s not a deal to be closed. She’s a person I’ve hurt.
“Have dinner with me,” I propose.
She blinks. “What?”
“Dinner. Tonight. Not as a bribe or an apology gift. Just… dinner. A chance to talk like two adults instead of dancing around each other all day.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’ll keep my hands to myself. Scout’s honor.”
“Were you ever actually a scout?”
“No. But the sentiment stands.”
She chews her bottom lip, considering. I wait, giving her space to decide.
“Fine,” she relents at last. “Dinner. But somewhere public. And we’re going Dutch.”
“Absolutely not. I’m paying.”
“Then I’m not going.”
I sigh. “Fine. We’ll split the check. But I’m choosing the restaurant.”
“Deal.”
At seven o’clock, I take her to a quiet Italian place I know in the West Loop. It’s intimate but not romantic, upscale but not pretentious. The kind of place where we can actually hear each other talk.
The hostess seats us at a corner table. Kirsten orders a glass of Pinot Grigio while I get a whiskey neat.
“So,” she begins once our drinks arrive, “you wanted to talk.”
“I wanted to apologize properly. Face to face, without the barrier of expensive gifts.”
“You’ve already apologized.”
“Not well enough, apparently.” I take a sip of my whiskey. “I was jealous. That’s why I acted the way I did in the break room.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Jealous?”
“Yes. I saw you laughing with Peterson, and something… snapped. It was irrational and inappropriate, and I’m not proud of it.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing this admission. “Why would you be jealous? Our marriage isn’t real.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings about it.” I set down my glass. “Watching you smile at another man, laugh at his jokes… It bothered me more than I expected.”
“Derek is just a colleague.”
“I know that now. I knew it then, too, on some level. But logic doesn’t always win against instinct.”
The waiter arrives to take our orders. Kirsten chooses the linguine with clams while I go for the veal piccata. Once he leaves, she picks up her wine glass and studies me over the rim.
“This is the most honest you’ve been with me since we met.”
“I’m trying to do better.”
“Why now?”
Because I can’t stand the way you’ve been looking at me. Your disappointment cuts deeper than any business failure, and I want you to see me as more than the man who trapped you.
I don’t say any of that. Instead, I offer a partial truth.
“Because I don’t want you to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.” She takes a sip of wine. “I’m angry at you. I’m frustrated with the situation. But I don’t hate you.”
“That’s something, I suppose.”
“It’s a start.”
Our food arrives, and we eat in companionable silence for a few minutes. The linguine looks excellent, and my veal is perfectly cooked. Slowly, the atmosphere between us begins to thaw.
“Can I ask you something?” she ventures.
“Anything.”
“The Bratva stuff. Your family’s… business.” She chooses her words with obvious care. “What exactly do you do?”
I set down my fork. This is delicate territory. Too much information could frighten her, while too little might seem evasive.
“My branch handles the legitimate operations,” I begin. “Real estate, investments, corporate acquisitions. Everything above board and fully legal.”
“But that’s not all your family does.”
“No. It’s not.” I meet her eyes. “My cousins handle the other side. Weapons, mostly. Some protection services. Nothing that would directly touch you or your work.”
“Weapons.” She repeats the word like she’s testing its weight. “Like… arms dealing?”
“Among other things.”
“And the company I worked for? The one you acquired?”
“The previous ownership had ties to a rival organization. They were using it to launder money and gather intelligence. I removed them.”
“By buying the company.”
“It was the cleanest solution. Minimal violence, maximum control.”
She considers this as she twirls pasta around her fork. “And the people who threatened me? Wallace and Tillman?”
“No longer a concern. They’ve been dealt with.”
“Dealt with how?”
I pick up my whiskey and reply, “I’d rather not go into specifics.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. I brace myself for the questions I don’t want to answer, the judgment I probably deserve.
Instead, she asks, “Why did you protect me? You didn’t know me. I was just some random employee.”
“You weren’t random. I recognized you from the bar.”
“That’s why? Because we had a one-night stand?”
“Partly.” I swirl the amber liquid in my glass. “But also because I heard what they said to you. The threats they made. And I knew that if I didn’t intervene, you’d either become their pawn or their casualty.”
“So you made me yours instead?”
The question lingers between us, unanswered. I don’t have a good response for that one.
We finish our meal, and the conversation drifts to lighter topics. Her work before the acquisition. My education and early career. The shared misery of Chicago real estate and the impossibility of finding a decent apartment without selling a kidney.
She laughs at something I say about my first apartment—a tiny studio with a radiator that screamed like a banshee every winter—and the sound hits me square in the chest. This is what I wanted. This ease, this warmth. A glimpse of who she might be if she weren’t constantly on guard around me.
I pay the check despite her protests. She rolls her eyes but doesn’t push it after I point out that she can cover the next one.
The drive home is comfortable. My driver is behind the wheel with the partition raised, giving us privacy. Kirsten watches the city pass by outside the window with a small smile still playing at her lips.
When we pull up to the building, I walk her to the elevator. We ride up in silence, but it’s a different kind of silence now. There’s no undercurrent there, this time.
At our floor, she steps out first. I follow a few paces behind, giving her space.
At the door to the penthouse, she pauses and turns to face me.
“Thank you,” she says. “For dinner. It was… nice.”
“Nice?” I tease. “That’s all I’m getting?”
“Don’t push your luck.” But she’s smiling. A real smile, the first one she’s given me in days. “I mean it. Tonight was good. Different.”
“Different how?”
“You were honest with me. About the jealousy, about your family, about why you did what you did.” She tilts her head and adds, “I appreciate that.”
I know I should say goodnight, let her go inside, and maintain the fragile peace we’ve built.
Instead, I step closer.
“I meant what I said earlier. About being jealous.”
“I know.”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since that night at the bar. Watching you in the office every day, being so close but not being able to touch you… It’s been driving me crazy.”
“Menlow…”
“I’m not saying this to pressure you. I just want you to know.” I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers linger against her cheek. “You’re not just a piece of paper to me. You never were.”
She stares at me and parts her lips, and I watch the battle play out across her features. Logic versus desire. Caution versus want.
Want wins.
She grabs my tie and yanks me down to her. Our mouths meet, and this time there’s no holding back from either of us. I wrap my arms around her and pull her flush against my chest, kissing her the way I’ve wanted to all night.
She tastes like wine and tiramisu, and I’m already addicted. I walk her backward until her shoulders meet the door, cradling her face in my hands while she grips the lapels of my jacket. She makes that sound again, that little moan that drives me wild, and I kiss her harder.
This is a terrible idea. We both know it.
Neither of us stops.