Page 40 of Sexting His Assistant

But I don’t. Instead, I lift them to my face.

The moment I inhale, something in me turns primitive.

Her scent is still there. Warm and faintly sweet, mixed with the clean trace of her skin and the sharper, intimate proof of what I did to her. My fingers tighten around the fabric. My eyes close before I can stop them.

Why? Why would I do this?

The answer is immediate and unwelcome.

Because I want evidence.

Not for anyone else. Not to use against her. Not to frighten or humiliate her.

For myself.

Because for years, Nina Hale has been a line I refused to cross, a door I kept locked, a girl turned woman in the corner of my life with quick eyes and sharper words and a dangerous habit of making me feel human at the worst possible times.

And today, for a few irreversible minutes, she was not forbidden.

She was real. Hot under my hands. Open beneath my mouth. Shaking because of me.

I press the fabric harder against my palm and let out a slow breath through my nose.

This is not acceptable. None of this is acceptable.

I cross to my desk, open the bottom drawer, and place the underwear inside the private compartment where I keep things no assistant, lawyer, or security chief is permitted to touch. Then I close it and lock it.

A ridiculous act. A damning one.

My phone lights on the desk.

Nina.

Her name on the screen feels like a hand on the back of my neck.

I let it ring.

Once. Twice. Three times. Then it stops.

A second later, a message appears.

Nina: Are we going to discuss the boardroom or are you pretending you’ve developed selective amnesia?

I stare at it.

My mouth almost moves. Then I turn the phone face down.

No. Not now. Not when I can still taste her.

Not when all it would take is one wrong word from her for me to go back out there, drag her into this office, and finish what I deliberately did not start.

The intercom buzzes.

I press the button. “Yes?”

Meredith’s voice comes through, crisp and cautious. “Mr. Kazan, Kirill Antonov is here. He says he has an appointment.”

“He does not.”