18. Finn
Finn
Idon’t know at which point I reached my limit.
Maybe it was the day when she walked into the marketing wing in that lavender blouse buttoned all the way up to her throat, looking like butter wouldn’t melt, and I had to sit in my office for twenty minutes staring at a spreadsheet I wasn’t reading until my pulse returned to normal.
Maybe it was when I passed her desk and she didn’t look up. Didn’t acknowledge me at all, just kept typing, her dark hair falling like a curtain between us, and I couldn’t decide if I was annoyed or embarrassed by how much I noticed.
But no. I think I know exactly when it happened.
It was Thursday morning, not long after she arrived.
Sophie walks through the glass doors of the marketing wing with a coffee in one hand, and she’s wearing a cream dress.
It’s not revealing, like at all. The neckline sits just below her collarbone, the sleeves reach her elbows, the hem falls below her knees. Some would probably even call it conservative.
But that color.
Against her skin, smooth and impossibly soft-looking, the cream fabric creates an illusion.
A trick of the light, maybe. A trick of my increasingly unhinged mind, more likely.
But the pale fabric blurs the boundary between cloth and flesh, and my brain short-circuits trying to figure out where one ends and the other begins.
She looks like she’s wrapped in nothing but candlelight.
I grip the edge of my desk so hard my knuckles ache.
Look away. Look away, you fucking idiot.
I don’t look away.
She crosses the floor to her desk, setting down her coffee, shrugging her bag off her shoulder. The movement makes the dress shift against her body, the fabric catching on the curve of her hip for just a second before falling smooth again.
My mouth goes dry.
And then Celine appears at her side, saying something I can’t hear through the glass, and Sophie turns to her and smiles. It’s wide and easy, and a second later she’s laughing, head tipped back slightly, one hand pressed to her sternum. She looks happy and carefree and so real.
Except none of it is real. She’s playing a part, the same way she played a part at the gala, the same way she plays every part, effortless, without a trace of the woman underneath.
Stop it. Stop pretending. Stop being this person who doesn’t exist. For once in your fucking life, just be honest.
I don’t move. I sit at my desk, my jaw locked tight, and watch her through the glass like a man watching a fire he can’t put out.
I’ve been trying to ignore her since she arrived. It seemed like the only viable strategy. If I don’t acknowledge her existence beyond the bare minimum of professional courtesy, eventually whatever this is will burn itself out.
That was the theory, anyway.
In practice, ignoring Sophie is like trying to ignore a splinter lodged under your skin. The more you try not to think about it, the more you feel it. A nagging pressure that builds and builds until it’s all you can focus on.
I catch myself tracking her movements through the office.
Noting when she arrives, when she leaves, who she talks to, how long she spends at each desk.
I notice when she changes her hair. Down on Monday, half-up on Tuesday, that devastating ponytail on Wednesday that exposed the line of her neck and made me want to press my mouth to the spot where her pulse beats.
I notice when she laughs, and with whom. When she frowns at her computer screen, her brow furrowing in concentration. When she bites her lower lip while reading something, her teeth pressing into that soft pink flesh.
I notice everything. And every detail is another coal added to the fire that’s slowly consuming me from the inside out.
By Thursday afternoon, I am so tightly wound that my body feels like a live wire stripped of its casing.
Every nerve ending exposed. Every sensation amplified.
The scratch of my collar against my neck.
The click of keyboards from the main floor.
The faint, bland scent of her suppressants that somehow manages to find me through the glass wall of my office.
I can’t concentrate. The campaign proposal I’m supposed to be reviewing lies open and unread, the emails pile up in my inbox, and I do nothing but sit here, vibrating with a tension that has no outlet and no resolution.
This is pathetic. You’re pathetic. She’s a spy who accidentally kissed you while hunting a different man, and you’re sitting here like a lovesick teenager who can’t—
Sophie walks back into the office from her coffee break.
She’s carrying a paper cup in one hand, the other tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear.
My hand is reaching for the phone before I can stop myself.
I watch through the glass as she arrives at her desk, sets down her coffee, and settles into her chair. She’s reaching for her keyboard when her desk phone rings.
“Yes, Mr. Preston?” Her voice sounds uncertain.
“Ms. Dysart.” I keep my tone professional. “I’d like to have a word with you.”
She doesn’t answer right away. “Of course, sir.”
Sir. The word annoys and pleases me at the same time, which is more proof that I’m losing it.
I hang up and lean back in my chair, running a hand over my face.
What am I doing? What the actual fuck am I doing?
Through the glass, I watch her rise from her desk and say something to Celine. Celine nods, gives her an encouraging smile. Sophie squares her shoulders and turns toward my office.
There’s a soft knock at the door.
Last chance to call this off. Tell her it was a mistake. Tell her you dialed the wrong extension.
“Come in.”
The door opens, and she steps inside.
Up close, the dress is even worse than I thought.
The fabric is some kind of soft knit that drapes over her body like water, following every line and curve without clinging.
“Ms. Dysart.” I gesture to the chair across from my desk. “Please, have a seat.”
She nods and starts to move toward the chair. I rise and walk to the door, reaching past her to close it so that no one outside can hear us.
She’s close. Close enough that I catch a whiff of her scent as she passes.
She smells like almost nothing. Just a faint hint of freshly washed fabric. The suppressants doing exactly what they’re designed to do.
That’s what keeps fucking with my head.
Not what she smells like now, but the memory of what she smelled like then. The knowledge that underneath all those suppressants, underneath the costume and the cover story and the carefully constructed persona, there is an omega whose real scent I can’t stop thinking about.
I’ve smelled hundreds of omegas. Thousands, probably. At galas, at clubs, at business meetings. Sweet scents, floral scents, musky scents. All of them were pleasant and completely forgettable.
But hers... it wasn’t forgettable. Or even pleasant. It was a revelation.
And I can’t smell it now and can’t even confirm it existed outside of my increasingly unreliable memory.
I close the door quietly and return to my desk, putting the solid width of oak between us.
Sophie sits with her hands folded in her lap, her posture perfect, one eyebrow slightly raised as she waits for me to speak.
I take a second I don’t need to straighten the papers in front of me.
“Ms. Dysart,” I say, folding my arms across my chest. “I’d like an update on your progress.”
She opens her mouth to respond, and my gaze drops to her lips before I can stop it.
Those lips. Soft. Pink. The lower one slightly fuller than the upper, creating a natural pout that doesn’t need lipstick to draw attention. Lips I’ve kissed. Lips I can still feel against mine when I close my eyes at night.
Focus. She’s talking. Listen to the words coming out of her mouth and stop just staring at it like a complete lunatic.
“Mr. Preston,” she says. “Both the fourth floor and the security wing on the second floor have been fully swept. No listening devices of any kind.”
“Both floors clean,” I repeat. “That’s good.”
“It means whoever is behind this isn’t using surveillance equipment, which narrows things down considerably.
” She pauses. “Mr. Cavill and I talked during last night’s sweep.
We’re meeting at your place tomorrow afternoon.
I’m getting the background reports from Sentinel later today and I’ll go through everything then. ”
“And the personnel observations?” I press. “You’ve been embedded in this department for four days now. Surely you’ve noticed something.”
“I’ve been building behavioral baselines for everyone on this floor,” she says. “Observing routines, interactions, communication patterns. A few people have flagged for closer attention, but I’d rather wait for the background reports before drawing conclusions.”
“I see.”
“Is there anything else?” she asks.
Were you pretending the whole time? At the gala, in my suite, when you kissed me, was any of it real? Did you feel what I felt, even for a second? Or was I just another target?
“I’d like a timeline,” I say instead, folding my arms tighter across my chest. “How soon do you think this will be resolved?”
She frowns. It’s small, just a slight drawing together of her brows, a tightening at the corners of her mouth, but I can’t help but feel some twisted sense of satisfaction at eliciting a genuine response from her.
“It’s difficult to say,” she says carefully. “Investigations like this can take weeks. Sometimes months. It depends on—”
“We don’t have months, Ms. Dysart.” I lean forward, resting my forearms on the desk. “You understand what’s at stake here.”
Her eyes flash for just a second before she gets it under control, but I catch it.
“I understand perfectly,” she says, and there’s an edge to her voice now. “But I can’t make promises I can’t keep. Rushing an investigation leads to mistakes, and mistakes mean the mole stays hidden.”
“Fine.” I hold her gaze. “Just know that the sooner this is done, the better.”
The words hang in the air between us, and we both hear what I’m not saying.
The sooner you’re out of here, the better.