Page 60 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
“Ethan is on a legal call,” Asher says. “Owen is avoiding you.”
I stiffen. “He’s not avoiding me. He’s busy.”
“He’s avoiding you,” Asher corrects calmly. “His cortisol levels are spiked. He’s spent the last hour reorganizing the filing cabinet. He hasn’t touched physical paper since we started. He’s distressed.”
I stare at him. “Asher, stop analyzing us.”
“It’s not a switch I can flip,” he says.
He pushes one of the laptops aside and leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. His blue eyes lock onto mine. They’re intense, intelligent, and terrifyingly knowledgeable.
“You slept with him,” he says.
Heat scorches up my neck. “Asher?—”
“The timeline tracks,” he continues, ticking points off on his fingers. “You left the office at 5:45 PM. Owen left seconds later. You went to Azul. Your GPS signals merged. You went to his loft. You stayed overnight. More than twelve hours.”
The floor seems to tilt. The clinical way he recites my movements, like I’m a package being shipped, makes my skin crawl.
“You had no right to track me, Asher.” My voice is thin, jagged. “That text you sent on Saturday wasn’t ‘business.’ It was a goddamn violation.”
“I monitor Mosaic telemetry,” Asher says, as if he’s discussing server load. “Proximity-based matching requires location telemetry. Any phone running our beta build pings diagnostics, location included, unless you opt out. It’s standard protocol.”
“It’s stalking,” I snap, gripping the edge of the table. “I wasn’t on the clock, Asher. That’s a massive invasion of privacy. It’s… it’s sick.”
“It’s reality,” he corrects. “And reality is neutral. You’re a critical asset, Tessa. When an asset goes off-grid with a founder, the risk profile changes.”
“I’m not an asset!” I hiss, looking at the glass walls to make sure no one’s watching. “I’m a person. And you don’t get to watch me like I’m a dot on a screen.”
“You’re both,” he says. “And you introduced a new variable into the system.”
He stands up. He walks around the table, moving with that silent, predatory grace. He stops next to my chair.
I refuse to look up at him. I stare at my tablet, grip so tight the plastic edge digs into my palm.
“Did he hurt you?” Asher asks.
His voice is different. Softer. The clinical detachment is gone, replaced by something rougher.
I look up then. Asher is looking down at me, his brow furrowed. He looks… worried.
“No,” I whisper. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“Good.” Asher nods. “Because if he hurt you, I’d have to calculate a way to dismantle him without destroying the company. And that’d be mathematically difficult.”
I blink. “You… you’d dismantle Owen?”
“If he hurt you,” Asher says simply. “Yes.”
The words land like a punch to the chest.
“Why?” I ask. “I thought the “unit” came first. I thought you guys were inseparable.”
“We are,” Asher says. He reaches out, his hand hovering near my hair before dropping it to the back of my chair. “But you aren’t an external variable anymore, Tessa. You’re in the circuit. You’re part of the loop.”
“I’m just an employee, Asher. Owen and I… we ended it. It was a mistake.”
“Was it?”
