Chapter 3 #2
I think rapidly, mentally cataloging the building's layout and trying to identify any space that might offer privacy and sufficient surface area for the kind of document-intensive planning we're going to need.
"There's a temporary office on the third floor," I say slowly.
"It was supposed to be converted into additional storage, but the renovation got delayed when the budget cuts hit.
It's small, but it has a desk, a working lamp, and most importantly, a door that locks. "
"Lead the way, First Mate."
The temporary office turns out to be even smaller than I remembered, a converted supply closet that someone optimistically furnished with a battered desk, two mismatched chairs, and a single filing cabinet that looks like it survived the Cold War.
The overhead light doesn't work, but there's a desk lamp that casts a warm yellow glow over the cramped space, and the door does indeed have a functioning lock, which feels increasingly important given the chaos currently consuming the rest of the building.
The problem is that the office was designed for one person of average human size, and Knox Bloodaxe is neither one person nor of average human size.
When he steps through the doorway, his shoulders brush both sides of the frame, and once he's inside, his presence seems to fill every available cubic inch of air.
The desk that looked reasonably sized when I was imagining myself working alone at it now looks like dollhouse furniture next to his frame, and when he lowers himself into one of the chairs, it creaks ominously in a way that suggests it is deeply unhappy about this new arrangement.
"Cozy," Knox says, and the word sounds utterly sincere despite the fact that his knees are pressed against the desk and his elbow keeps brushing against the filing cabinet every time he moves his arm.
I squeeze past him to reach the other chair, and in the narrow space between his body and the wall, my hip grazes against his thigh.
The contact lasts less than a second, but it sends a jolt of awareness up my spine that settles somewhere behind my sternum and refuses to dissipate.
His leg is warm through the fabric of his obviously custom-tailored trousers, warm and solid and impossibly large, and I find myself suddenly very conscious of the fact that his thigh is approximately the circumference of my entire torso.
"Sorry," I mutter, dropping into my chair with more force than strictly necessary. "There's not a lot of room to maneuver in here."
"You need not apologize." Knox shifts in his seat, and his knee bumps against mine under the desk.
He doesn't move it. "Close quarters breed efficiency.
In battle, warriors often fight shoulder to shoulder, their movements synchronized by necessity rather than planning.
This office will serve a similar purpose. "
Shoulder to shoulder is not the phrase I would use to describe our current proximity.
His shoulder is approximately at the level of my head, and when he leans forward to examine the documents I've spread across the desk, his arm brushes against mine with a friction that I can feel through both layers of our clothing.
The scent of him fills the small space, something woodsy and metallic and distinctly non-human that shouldn't be as appealing as it is, and I find myself having to actively focus on the numbers in front of me rather than the way his braided tusks catch the lamplight when he turns his head.
"The first priority is identifying existing revenue streams," I say, dragging my attention back to the task at hand with an effort that borders on heroic.
"We need to know exactly what this company produces and who's buying it before we can figure out how to make any of it profitable within the next thirty days. "
Knox nods, his attention shifting to the spreadsheets. His hand reaches for one of the documents at the same moment mine does, and our fingers collide over the quarterly report, his green digits brushing against my much smaller ones in a contact that lingers a beat longer than accidental.
"Forgive me," he says, but he doesn't sound sorry. His golden eyes meet mine, and there's something in them that I can't quite identify, something warm and assessing and entirely too focused on my face.
"It's fine." I am slightly breathless, which is ridiculous because I am a professional woman with an excellent credit score and absolutely no business getting flustered by incidental finger contact with my new Orc boss.
I pull the document toward me and pretend to study it with great interest while my pulse gradually returns to something approaching normal.
We work in charged silence for the next several minutes, passing documents back and forth across the small desk, our arms and hands and occasionally shoulders making contact with a frequency that stops feeling accidental after the third or fourth occurrence.
Knox asks questions about accounting terminology that reveal surprising depths of financial understanding beneath his warrior rhetoric, and I find myself slipping into the comfortable rhythm of explanation and analysis, my anxiety about the foreclosure temporarily displaced by the familiar pleasure of making complex numbers tell a coherent story.
"This is genuinely concerning," I say, tapping my pen against a particularly damning expense report.
"The previous management was spending almost forty percent of revenue on what they're calling 'client entertainment,' which appears to mostly be golf memberships and expensive dinners that didn't actually generate any new business.
We could cut that entirely and redirect the funds to—"
The lights go out.
The transition from warm lamplight to absolute darkness is so sudden and complete that for a moment I think I've somehow gone blind.
"Power failure. Natural occurrence or deliberate sabotage?"
"I don't know." I fumble for my phone, its screen providing a weak glow that barely penetrates the shadows pressing in around us. "The building's electrical system has been having issues for months, but a complete blackout like this is—"
I stop talking because something else has just occurred to me, something that sends a cold spike of unease through me.
I push back from my chair and pick my way carefully toward the door, my phone's light barely sufficient to keep me from tripping over the furniture, and when I reach the handle and try to turn it, my worst suspicion is confirmed.
The door doesn't budge.
I try again, putting my weight into it this time, but the result is the same. The handle turns freely, but the door itself remains firmly, immovably closed, as if something on the other side is holding it in place.
"Knox, the door is locked. From the outside."
Behind me, I hear the creak of his chair as Knox rises to his feet, his form displacing the darkness as he moves toward me. "Locked from the outside," he repeats. "That is not a natural occurrence."
"No," I agree, pressing my back against the unyielding door and trying very hard not to think about how small this room suddenly feels, how close Knox is standing, and how very, very dark it is. "It's really not."