Page 16 of Sexting His Assistant

I don’t glance up. “What about it?”

“It’s been buzzing all evening.”

“That happens when other people are alive.”

“Is he persistent,” Luka asks, “or are you encouraging him?”

I lift my head slowly.

Luka’s still seated, one arm resting on the table, watching me with that unreadable expression that somehow always feels like a hand at the back of my neck.

“That is none of your business,” I say.

He remains quiet and then finally says, “I’m curious.”

I laugh once. “That’s somehow the least reassuring answer you could have given.”

He stands, and the room feels smaller immediately.

I hate that. I hate that my body reacts before my mind does, every single time. He’s just a man. A tall, dangerous, impossibly attractive man who could probably make bishops lie for him, but still. A man.

Luka comes around the table and stops beside my chair.

Not touching. Not quite crowding. Just there.

“Show me the notes,” he says.

I pass him the tablet because that is safer than arguing.

He scans the page, eyes moving quickly. “Page two is sloppy.”

“My shorthand is elegant.”

“It’s emotional.”

I stare at him. “My notes are not emotional.”

“The line about Voronin reads like you were offended by him.”

“I was,” I say. “He interrupted me twice and called me sweetheart once.”

Luka’s expression changes by one quiet degree. “Why didn’t you mention that?”

“Because you were busy discussing whatever rich men discuss when they don’t want courts involved.”

He looks back at the page. “You left it out.”

“It wasn’t relevant.”

His gaze lifts. “Everything is relevant.”

I swallow.

He means more than the notes. Of course he does.

My phone buzzes again.

Luka’s eyes shift to my bag. Then to me. “Answer it,” he says.