Page 98 of Sexting His Assistant

He sees it.

His gaze drops there and returns to my eyes with visible effort.

“I should have deleted it,” he says. “I should have called you into my office and done the decent thing. I should have reminded you who I am, who your brother is to me, why this cannot happen.”

He’s close enough now that I can see the strain around his mouth. The pallor beneath his skin. The pain from his shoulder riding under every controlled breath. His sling is gone, but his injured arm stays close to his body, useless enough to make him angrier.

“But I read it,” he says. “And all I could think was that you were offering those words to another man.”

My stomach pulls tight.

His voice drops lower. “I could not bear it.”

I should say something. I cannot.

“I could not bear the thought of you thinking of his mouth,” he says. “His hands. His body. I could not sit there and let you belong to some boring fool with good timing because I had been too noble, too old, too afraid of Misha’s judgment to admit that I wanted you.”

His good hand lifts, then stops, as if touching me without permission has become something he is actively fighting. “I did not touch you because I wanted a secretary,” he says. “I did not touch you because you were convenient or because you were another woman in a diary. I touched you because I have wanted you so badly it made me cruel.”

My eyes sting. I hate that. I hate him. I want him.

“So what?” I whisper. “You want credit for restraint after you ruined me on your conference table?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

His answer comes immediately. “You.”

The room goes dead silent.

He says it again, like it costs him something and he wants to pay anyway. “You. Angry. Difficult. Too young for me. Too honest for this life. Too important to Misha. Too close to every line I should never cross.”

My breath catches.

“And still,” he says, “you.”

I slap him.

The sound cracks through the apartment before I know I’m going to do it.

His face turns slightly with the force of it.

My palm burns.

For one horrified second, I freeze.

Some animal part of my body expects retaliation. A grabbed wrist. A shouted word. The room turning dangerous in a way I cannot undo.

Luka does none of that.

He stands there with his face turned, jaw tight, cheek slowly reddening beneath my handprint, and breathes once through his nose.

Then he looks back at me, but does not. My palm is still stinging from the force of hitting him.

“You’re awful,” I say, voice breaking.

“Yes.”