Page 42 of Prey

He laughs once. It sounds like a hiccup. "They’re not wrong."

He’s right. He is dangerous. To me and to himself.

"She painted you as a liability," I say. "She painted me as prey. She painted herself as the hunter guarding the company’s interests."

He looks up at me. His eyes are glassy, but there’s fire under the cracks.

"What are you going to do?" he asks. "Distance yourself? Tell them HR will handle it? Pretend last night didn’t happen?"

Anger flares hot in my chest. At Rose for using my cameras. At Leo for giving her access. At myself for feeding Grey’s obsession with late-night meetings and quiet compliments. At the way the people outside looked at him like he was meat dropped into a shark tank.

What am I going to do?

I walk around the desk. Stand close enough that he has to tilt his head back to keep my face in view.

"What I just did out there," I say, "was not distancing myself."

He swallows. "Dragging me into your office in front of everyone kind of looked like punishment."

"If I wanted to punish you," I say, "I wouldn’t have done it with my hand on your wrist."

Color rises in his cheeks.

"I had two options," I continue. "Leave you out there for them to dissect. Or bring you in here and make it very clear that anyone who touches you has to go through me."

He watches me. His gaze is sharp, even through the humiliation.

"You made it worse," he says softly.

"I know." I don’t deny it.

He flinches at the word. I don’t blame him. For men like us, honesty is usually the thing that gets you fired, not the thing that saves you.

"I built that system," I say. "The cameras. The logs. The feeds. I built it to control what happens in my building. She took it, twisted it, and used it to make you look like a monster and me look like your victim."

"You’re not my victim," he says quickly. The words land like a promise.

"No," I agree. "And you’re not a monster. Not to me."

He looks away. "You saw the video," he says. "The office. The desk."

"I was there when it happened," I remind him. "The video isn’t news to me."

"That doesn’t make it less shameful," he says. "It just means you’ve had longer to live with knowing what I am."

"What you are," I state, "is mine."

The word hangs between us.

"Do you regret last night?" he asks, voice tiny. Not the broken desperation I heard when he came on my sheets.

"No," I say instantly. Then, slower, "I regret not anticipating how quickly she’d move."

I reach out, rest my fingers under his chin. The contact is light, but he doesn’t pull away.

"I don’t regret touching you," I say. "I don’t regret bringing you into my bed. I don’t regret making you mine. I regret that people who don’t deserve to see that are now making stories out of it."

He exhales. It sounds like he’s been holding his breath since he opened the email.