Page 46 of Sexting His Assistant

“Yes.”

“After today?”

“Nina.”

“No.” She steps closer again. “Don’t say my name like that and expect me to vanish.”

The garage is too exposed for this. Too many cameras. I don’t like being in vulnerable places.

I take her arm lightly and guide her toward the side of my car, out of the direct line of sight from the ramp.

She comes with me, but only because she chooses to. I feel the tension in her arm, the heat of her skin through her sleeve.

When we reach the car, she turns on me. “You ignored me all day.”

“I was busy.”

“You sent Pavel for files you always ask me to bring.”

“Pavel was available.”

“I was ten feet away.”

“Exactly.”

That stops her, and her expression changes. For one moment, she looks hurt before she can hide it, and it cuts deeper than I expect.

“Exactly,” she repeats softly.

I loosen my grip on her arm. “Nina⁠—”

“No, I understand.” Her voice goes light in the way people sound when they are anything but. “You got it out of your system.”

My jaw tightens. “Careful.”

“Why?” she asks. “Because you don’t want to hear the truth? Because I’m not a thing you can use and throw away?”

“Stop it,” I say when I want to say, you’re none of those things. I still want you so badly it scares me. “You’re angry and guessing.”

“I’m angry because you left!”

“I left because staying would have been worse.”

“For whom?”

I look at her. She glares back.

The garage seems to narrow around us, concrete and steel and the quiet ticking of the car engine cooling beside us.

“For both of us,” I say.

She laughs once, humorless. “You keep deciding that.”

“Someone has to.”

Her eyes narrow. “Oh, there it is.”

“What?”