Sneak Peek #2
The elevator is smaller than I remember.
Or maybe Rowan Blackwell is bigger. Either way, the moment the doors whisper shut behind us, the space shrinks to approximately the size of a shoebox, and every single one of my nerve endings decides to stage a revolt.
He stands on the opposite side of the car—a whole three feet away—and somehow it's still not enough distance.
His cologne fills the enclosed space, cedar and something darker underneath, something that makes me think of rumpled sheets and bad decisions.
The heat radiating off his body is a physical presence, and I find myself pressing back against the cool metal wall just to create another inch of separation.
Get it together, Harper. He's your boss. Your brother's best friend. The man who just publicly humiliated you in front of half the company.
The elevator begins its climb, floor numbers ticking upward in soft blue light, and neither of us speaks. The silence is suffocating. I stare at the brushed steel doors and try very hard not to think about the last time I was this close to him.
Mateo's thirtieth birthday. Last summer. The rooftop bar he'd rented out, string lights swaying in the humid breeze, and Rowan standing alone by the railing with a glass of whiskey and an expression like he was solving equations in his head.
I'd had three glasses of champagne and exactly zero common sense. I walked up to him, liquid courage fizzing in my veins, and asked why he never smiled.
He'd looked at me—really looked, not the dismissive glances I was used to—and said, "I smile when something's worth smiling about."
"That's depressing," I'd told him.
"That's efficient," he'd replied. And then—God, I still don't know if I imagined it—his gaze had dropped to my mouth for exactly half a second before Mateo appeared and dragged him away to do birthday shots.
I'd spent the rest of the night replaying that half-second. The whole year, if I'm being honest.
Now, trapped in this elevator with him, I feel that same dangerous electricity crackling under my skin.
The same pull I've been trying to ignore since I took this job, since I walked into his office on day one and realized that the man I'd been low-key obsessing over for three years was about to become the person who controlled my entire professional existence.
"You're staring at the doors like they insulted your mother."
His voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts, and I realize I've been white-knuckling the handrail.
"I'm calculating how many floors I have left to mentally prepare my resignation speech." I don't look at him. Can't. "I'm up to 'I quit, you impossible, arrogant?—'"
"You're not quitting."
"I'm not?"
"No." There's something in his tone—something almost like certainty—that makes me finally turn my head.
He's watching me. Not the doors, not his phone, not the floor numbers. Me.
My breath catches.
The elevator shudders.
It's not dramatic—just a small hiccup, a mechanical stutter between floors twenty-six and twenty-seven—but it's enough to knock me off balance. My heel catches on nothing, my body pitching sideways, and before I can grab for the handrail, there's a hand on my waist.
Rowan's hand.
Large. Warm. Anchoring me in place with a grip that's firm without being forceful, his fingers splayed across the curve of my hip like they were designed to fit there.
My entire body goes electric.
"Steady." His voice is low, close—so much closer than it was a second ago.
When did he move? When did I move? There's barely a breath between us now, and I can see the individual threads of silver in his gray eyes, can count the faint lines at their corners, can feel the warmth of his breath ghosting across my forehead.
"I'm steady," I manage, but my voice is breathy. A lie wrapped in syllables.
He doesn't let go.
The elevator resumes its climb, smooth and unbothered, but his hand stays exactly where it is. I should step back. I should put distance between us, reassert some kind of professional boundary, remind both of us that he's my boss and this is wildly inappropriate.
I don't move.
His jaw tightens. I watch the muscle flex beneath his skin, watch something flicker behind those steel-gray eyes—something that looks almost like restraint. Like he's holding himself back from the edge of a cliff.
What would happen if he jumped?
The thought is reckless. Dangerous. Completely insane. And yet I can't stop it from blooming in my chest, hot and wanting, as his thumb shifts—just barely, just a fraction of an inch—against the fabric of my blouse.
"You—" My voice cracks. I swallow hard and try again. "You can let go now."
"Can I?"
It's not a question. Not really. It's a challenge, wrapped in two words and delivered with the kind of quiet intensity that makes my knees feel like they're made of water.
My pulse is a drumline in my ears. My skin is too tight. Every point of contact between us—his palm on my hip, his fingertips grazing my spine, the heat of him seeping through layers of fabric—feels like a brand. Like he's marking me with touch alone.
The floor counter ticks: thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four.
He lets go.
The absence of his hand is a cold shock, and I hate—hate—that I feel it like a loss. He steps back to his side of the elevator, his expression shuttering into that familiar mask of cool indifference, and I'm left standing there with my heart pounding and dignity in shreds
Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine.
The elevator slows. Stops. The doors begin to part.
I move toward them on autopilot, desperate to escape the suffocating tension, to get to my desk and pretend the last five minutes didn't just rewire my entire nervous system. But before I can take a single step into the hallway, his voice stops me cold.
"Miss Reyes."
I don't turn around—I can't, not yet, not when I'm still trying to wrestle my heartbeat back into something resembling normal—but I stop.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. The elevator hums softly behind us, and the place where his fingers pressed against my waist still burns.
"Harper."
Not Miss Reyes. Harper.
My name in his mouth is a lit match. Something dangerous. Something that could burn down everything I've built if I'm not careful.
He holds my gaze for one searing moment. Then something shutters behind his eyes. He steps out of the elevator, close enough that I catch another wave of that cedar cologne, close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to maintain eye contact.
Then he's walking past me, down the hall toward his corner office, phone already pressed to his ear, leaving me standing frozen in the elevator doorway with my ruined blouse and my racing heart and absolutely no idea what just happened.
The doors begin to close.
I stumble out just in time, nearly tripping over my own feet, and watch his broad shoulders disappear around the corner.
My phone buzzes in my bag. Mateo again, probably. Another crisis, another fire to put out, another reminder that my life was already complicated enough before my billionaire boss started looking at me like I was something more than a scheduling problem.
I ignore the call.
And I walk toward my desk on shaking legs, one thought echoing through my skull like a warning bell:
What the hell was that?
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