The morning after is supposed to be soft light streaming through curtains, whispered promises. Maybe breakfast in bed, if I play my cards right.
This is not that kind of morning.
I wake up alone on my couch, my body aching in places I didn’t know it could ache. The apartment is empty. No sign of Vince except the lingering scent of his cologne and the marks he left on my skin.
I touch my neck where a bruise is forming, physical evidence of my stupidity.
Like I needed a reminder of that.
“What have you done, Rowan?” I whisper to myself.
The silence offers no answers.
I drag myself to the shower and crank the water as hot as I can stand. I scrub at my skin until it’s raw, as if I could wash away the memory of his hands on me. His mouth. His words.
Tell me who owns this pussy now.
You do.
God, I actually said that. I actually let those words come out of my mouth.
I can’t decide what burns hotter: the shame or the water.
I rest my forehead against the tile wall, letting the spray pound against my shoulders. What was I thinking? He’s my boss. He’s a criminal. He killed a man in front of me.
And just in case I decided I was suddenly fine with all of that…
He’s also supposed to marry someone else.
But even as hot, liquid shame washes over me, I can’t deny the truth: It was the best sex of my life. The only sex of my life that actually felt like it mattered.
Like I mattered.
No wonder people destroy their lives for this feeling.
I step out of the shower, wrapping myself in a towel that’s old enough to be closer to tissue paper than anything properly absorbent. My reflection in the steam-clouded mirror is a stranger to me. I trace all the things that weren’t there yesterday: the cut on my cheek, the bruise on my collarbone, the fingerprints on my hips.
Souvenirs of the night I lost my mind.
My phone buzzes on the counter. A text from Vince.
Car will pick you up in 30 minutes. Business as usual.
Business as usual. As if nothing happened. As if he didn’t ruin me on my own couch last night.
What a fucking joke that is.
Part of me is relieved. Maybe we can pretend it never happened. If we agree on that, then I can walk into that office and be nothing more than his assistant again.
The other part of me is utterly and completely devastated.
“Professional,” I say to my reflection. “You can do professional.”
Spoiler: I cannot do professional.
I’m a crumbling ruin from the second I step foot on Akopov property. The office feels different today. Or is it just that I’m the one who’s different?
Diane doesn’t even deign to nod in greeting as I pass her desk. Does she know? Can she tell just by looking at me what happened? Am I drowning in a cloud of eau de pathetic?
“He’s in a meeting,” she says before I can even say hello, eyeing me warily over her reading glasses. “Should be done by ten.”
I mumble something that approximates “thank you,” settle at my desk, and do my best to focus on the mountain of emails that accumulated during my absence.
Work. Safe, predictable, boring-as-hell work. I can lose myself in this. The number my brain, the better.
I deliberately avoid looking at Vince’s closed door.
By lunchtime, I’ve managed to clear most of the backlog. I’ve also successfully avoided any direct contact with Vince, timing my bathroom breaks for when he’s in meetings, keeping my eyes glued to my computer when he passes my desk.
Then Natalie calls, demanding details about where I’ve been for the past two days.
“Family emergency,” I lie. “Mom needed me.”
“You could have texted,” she scolds. “I was worried sick!”
Guilt twists in my gut. “I’m sorry, Nat. It’s been… complicated.”
“Well, you’re buying lunch tomorrow and telling me everything,” she declares. “No excuses.”
I agree miserably. I’ll have to concoct an elaborate fiction to explain my absence without mentioning car crashes, gunfights, or sleeping with the boss, but that’s fine. I mean, who cares? It’s just another lie in the growing collection I’ve been piling since I started this job.
The afternoon stretches endlessly. I’m being tortured by a clock that refuses to move.
Finally, at the merciful stroke of five o’clock, I grab my purse and spring for the elevator. I’ve survived the day. Tomorrow will be easier. The day after that, easier still.
Eventually, this will just be another mistake in a long line of poor life choices.
The elevator doors slide open, and I step inside, pressing the lobby button repeatedly as if that will make it arrive faster.
Just as the doors begin to close, a hand shoots out to stop them.
And Vince steps in.
My heart plummets to my shoes.
He says nothing as he enters. Just stands beside me, close enough that I can smell his cologne, feel the heat radiating from his body. The doors slide closed, sealing us inside together.
Feels an awful lot like a coffin. Kinda fitting that we’re both plummeting downward.
My finger hovers over the emergency stop button, wondering if I should just push it and get this over with.
Vince beats me to it.
The elevator jerks to a halt between floors. The sudden silence is deafening.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he intones. His voice reveals absolutely nothing. Not shame, not arrogance, not lust. Just… nothing.
I stare straight ahead at our reflections in the polished metal doors. “I’ve been busy. Catching up on work.”
“Bullshit.”
My cheeks burn. “What do you want me to say?”
“Look at me.”
I don’t move.
So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when his hand catches my chin, forcing me to turn and face him. Those ice-blue eyes bore into mine, searching for something.
“Do you regret it?” he asks.
Pause. Pause. Lie or no?
“Yes,” I admit, then instantly hate myself for the flash of something—hurt? anger?—that crosses his face. “No. Shit, I don’t know.”
His thumb brushes across my lower lip. “Which is it?”
“All of them,” I whisper. “I regret complicating an already impossible situation. I regret being so weak. But I can’t regret…” I trail off, unable to finish the thought.
“Can’t regret what?”
“How it felt,” I finish. “Being with you.”
His eyes darken. “And how did it feel?”
“Like I was finally alive after being dead for years.”
Vince’s hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers tangling in my hair. “Then why are you running?”
“Because I can’t have you,” I say, my voice quivering and breaking. “You’re going to marry someone else, Vince. This—” I gesture between us. “—isn’t real. It can’t be.”
“It felt real enough when you were screaming my name.”
I wince. Not one for subtlety, is he?
“Last night doesn’t change anything,” he continues. If I didn’t know him any better, I’d say his voice was soft with something damn near empathy. “Your job is secure. Your position here is not in jeopardy.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I ask bitterly. “That I can still be your assistant even after I’ve been under you?”
His jaw tightens. “What do you want from me, Rowan?”
“I don’t know! That’s the problem.” I push his hand away because I feel insane when he touches me. “I don’t know what I want, or what this is, or where we go from here.”
“I can tell you where we go from here,” he says, closing the distance between us until my back hits the elevator wall. “We continue. Behind closed doors. No one needs to know.”
“‘Continue,’” I repeat, the word hoarse and hollow and ugly in my mouth. “Until when? Until you marry some Bratva princess? Or just until I’ve served my purpose and you get bored of me?”
“Until I say otherwise.”
As with so many other times since our worlds collided, the right thing to do would be slap the arrogance right off his face.
But as with all those other times, I don’t. I can’t.
Because, for better or for worse, it’s the answer I wanted. Things aren’t over yet. We haven’t reached the part where it hurts too badly to go on.
You’ll get at least one more taste of paradise before it all goes up in smoke.
“And what if I say no?” I challenge, lifting my chin.
His mouth curves into that devastating half-smile. “Then you say no. I won’t force you, Rowan. I’m not that kind of monster.”
“But you think I won’t say no.”
“I know you won’t.” He leans in, his breath hot against my ear. “Because I felt how wet you got when I walked into this elevator. I can see how hard you’re breathing right now. I know what you look like when you’re desperate for me.”
My body betrays me, responding to his words with a rush of heat between my thighs.
“This is a mistake,” I croak.
“Maybe.” His fingers trace the line of my jaw. “But it’s a mistake we both want to make again.”
He’s right. That’s the worst part. Despite everything—the danger, the complications, the inevitable heartbreak waiting at the end of this road like a fucked-up pot of gold at the landing point of the rainbow—I want him.
I’ve always, always wanted him.
“Your driver is waiting,” I say. It’s a last feeble attempt at resistance. He knows as well as I do that it’s pathetic.
But, to my surprise, he lets me have it.
He steps back, releasing me from the cage of his body. He reaches over and presses the button to restart the elevator.
“Think about it,” he says as the elevator resumes its descent. “Take all the time you need.”
When the doors open in the lobby, he gestures for me to exit first.
“Goodnight, Ms. St. Clair,” he says, his voice returning to its professional register.
“Goodnight, Mr. Akopov.”
As I walk away, I can feel his eyes on me. Watching. Waiting. Knowing it’s only a matter of time before I give in again.
I step out into the cool evening air, drawing a deep breath to steady myself. I should be stronger than this. Smarter. Just walk away, goddammit! You know this can’t end well!
But even now, with humiliation burning in my chest, all I can think about is the weight of his body on mine.
He looked at me and touched me and spoke to me like I mattered. For five years, I dreamed about how he might look in a moment like that. When it came, it was more than I ever could have dreamed.
Nothing hurts as good as finally getting the things we’ve longed for.
