Page 61 of The KING Review

“Right.” She backs up, climbing off my lap. “My bad. I thought it was you who told me to come over here and ride your thigh.”

“God, Neve, I—” I groan, dragging a hand over my face. “None of this should be happening. I know you understand that. I’ve already ‘corrupted’ one file from these sessions because I always lose my fucking filter around you.”

Neve looks at me, still frowning, but she’s retreated a few steps. Closer to the seat where she started than she is to me, now.

“I’m doing you a disservice,” I say firmly.

“On the contrary,” she says, lips tilting up. “That was a pretty good service, Professor.”

A breath soughs from my chest. I’ve still not moved from my chair, though I know I need to go and clean myself up. “No, I’m serious. This is your education.”

I feel the panic rising in my chest, and Neve stares at me, something like pity mixed with disappointment written all over her pretty face. I hate the thought of disappointing her, but everything I said was true.

“You should go,” I mutter.

She sighs. “Okay. I’ll see you next week.”

I don’t answer.

I also don’t move—not until my phone pings, and I pick it up to find a voice note from Neve. A few beats of silence echo in the beginning, and when she speaks, it sounds like she’s in a bathroom stall.

“Look, I know that freaked you out, but I wanted all of it, okay?” she says softly, no trace of annoyance with my fucking her around, which is frankly a marvel. To say I’ve been sending mixed messages would be an understatement, especially when she’s been nothing but clear with me about what she wants. “I just want to tell you that you didn’t manipulate me. I know that scares you, so please don’t think that you did. You didn’t. And you’re not doing me a disservice. I’m not worried about my education, Grant. Sure, we maybe shouldn’t have done… that—” A soft laugh rolls out of her, then she clears her throat. “I understand and respect my own priorities and yours, but unless you tell me that you don’t want to pursue this anymore, then I still want it.” She pauses, as if to let the statement breathe for a second, then adds, “I still want you, okay?”

I shake my head. I don’t fucking know why.

“So… Take the time to recover from that.” She laughs quietly. “I don’t think I’ll ever recover, but I can’t say I’m mad about it.”

The note cuts off there, but I listen to it again, then a third time.

God, I am so utterly fucked.

Chapter Eighteen

Girl Talk

Neve

Fia and Cade’s house smells like the sweet tang of sautéing green onions and the smoke of rye as Cade makes a round of fancy, whiskey cocktails.

“I’m glad we’re doing this again,” I say, smiling at Cade as he pushes my drink across the counter to me. “It feels like since I moved here, we’ve been kind of… lax with our sister time because I’m closer. But I don’t want to get complacent about it, you know? These catchups are important to me.”

Fia turns from the stove, where she’s cooking our dinner—duck donburi. “Me neither. We’ve just both been busy, right?”

Cade shrugs, pulling up a barstool at the end of the island. “I mean, we’ve been planning a wedding, and it was the start of a new semester, which is busy both for us and for you.”

I nod, trying to keep my cool, but my mind immediately goes to Grant. I try to cover by taking a too-big sip of my drink, promptly choking on it.

“That bad, huh?” Cade chuckles, raising his glass to me.

“It’s been fine,” I say hoarsely, throat burning from the whiskey that went down the wrong way. “I mean, I think so, anyway. It feels like it’s going fine.”

“My sister,” Fia says fondly from the stove, not even turning around. “Always ‘vibing it.’”

“Hey, be nice,” I chide, but there’s no heat in it. “I’m good at vibes.” I tip my chin toward her fiancé. “I clocked this one with a hundred percent accuracy, didn’t I?”

Fia glances at me over her shoulder, rolling her eyes, but I see the naked affection shining there. Cade throws me a playful wink.

After dinner, he retreats to their newly decorated study so Fia and I can have some proper sister time. As much as I love him—and as much as Fia does too, obviously—the catchups we’ve been missing are just the two of us. That’s how it’s always been.