Page 9 of Sin

“I’m good at my job.”

“I know.”

A strange energy hums through the air between us. Thick. Charged. Dangerous in a way that feels impossible to explain out loud. I felt it the first time we met, when he leaned against my office doorway three years ago and told me to stop calling him Mr. Sinclair.

Call me Sin, he’d said casually. That’s what my friends call me.

As if we were friends. As if the nickname itself wasn’t intimate somehow. And God knows I’ve felt this tension every time we’ve crossed paths since then. In elevators. Meetings. Hallways. Brief conversations that somehow lingered in my head for hours afterward.

But this… this feels worse.

Maybe because we’re alone. Maybe because he keeps looking at me like he’s trying to peel apart layers I work very hard to keep intact. Or maybe because I can’t stop wondering what his mouth would feel like against mine. Which is exactly the moment my brain should be chemically sterilized.

Mason’s gaze drifts over my face slow enough to make my pulse stutter.

“You’re thinking too hard,” he says quietly.

“I’m literally at work.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

His voice lowers on the last sentence, rough enough to scrape along my nerves. And suddenly I’m hyperaware of everything. The silence in the office. The faint scent of cedar and spice clinging to him. The way his broad shoulders stretch against dark fabric when he leans back in the chair. My body responds before my brain can catch up and heat curls low in my stomach.

I should say something professional. Something smart. Instead, I just stare at him for one suspended second too long.

And then I see it.

The wedding band on his left hand. Gold wrapped securely around his finger. My gaze catches on it like a slap and reality crashes back so fast it almost physically hurts. His wife. Jenna smiling beside him in the conference room. Jenna’s lipstick on his neck. Jenna following him out the door while everyone else watched them like royalty.

What the hell am I doing?

The warmth inside me cools instantly, replaced by sharp embarrassment. At myself more than anything. I straighten in my chair and put distance back into my voice.

“I’ll have Opal coordinate the travel arrangements for Napa.”

Mason’s expression shifts almost imperceptibly.

“Laurel—”

“The revised presentation files will be ready by Friday,” I continue briskly, cutting him off before he can say whatever was about to come out of his mouth. “And I’ll prepare alternate campaign concepts for you to review before we leave.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “You’re dismissing me.”

“I’m working.”

A beat of silence passes. Then Mason slowly rises from the chair, all six-foot-whatever of intimidating male authority unfolding to his full height. He plants one hand on the edge of my desk and leans down just slightly. Not enough to invade my space. Enough to make me very aware he could if he wanted to.

“You do that every time,” he says quietly.

I force myself to meet his eyes. “Do what?”

“Pull away the second things become real.”

My heartbeat kicks painfully against my ribs.

“That’s a very inappropriate thing to say.”

A muscle shifts in his jaw. For the first time since he walked in, he almost looks frustrated.