Yet he didn’t move.
Because masochist that he was, he enjoyed the pain of the burn.
“Achilles,” she murmured, hesitated. Then, as if remembering she still touched him, glanced down and lowered her arm. Didn’t matter. The phantom imprint remained behind. “I was just about to, uh—” she stepped back, rubbed her arms up and down “—order food. Would you like to have dinner?”
He stared at her. Noted that she wouldn’t look at him.
“Doesn’t dinner cross the professional line you’ve drawn?”
That brought her head up, those gorgeous curls falling away from her face. And when her espresso eyes narrowed on him, something like satisfaction flared bright inside his gut.
He recognized it.
Had experienced it often when he’d grown big enough to fight back. And win.
The light of battle.
“Not when we’re just two colleagues sharing a meal,” she said evenly, though her gaze clearly ordered him to fuck off.
Did it make him perverse to be delighted by that visual middle finger?
Maybe.
But it was probably the lesser of two evils.
The second evil being his hard dick kicking against his zipper.
“One, we can never be ‘just two colleagues.’ Not as long as I’m me. People won’t allow that.” He planted one hand on her desk, fingers splayed wide, and gripped the back of her office chair with the other. Leaning forward, he said, voice low, “And two, you’re a much better actress than I gave you credit for if you can sit across from me, talk about office gossip over chicken Parmesan and pretend you don’t know how it is to have me swallow your moan as I push inside your body.” He slowly shook his head. “Sorry. I’m not that good an actor.”
Her eyes dilated, the pupils nearly engulfing the irises. “So you don’t need friends?” she asked.
“Not you.”
She barely flinched at the blunt answer, but he caught it. And part of him—the part that hadn’t been cauterized in that jail and by the equally harsh life lessons that followed—almost reached for her. Almost cupped her jaw and thumbed the patrician slope of her cheekbone.
Almost apologized, even knowing she, an illustrious Hill, didn’t consider him worthy enough of the wordfriend.
“Do you need anyone?” Mycah murmured.
Thenohovered on his tongue, abrupt and definite in his head. But he couldn’t utter it. Because as loud as thenoroared in his mind, a small voice whispered underneath that it was a lie.
“Achilles—”
“Oh, honey, I’m so glad I found you,” a feminine voice purred.
Surprise rippled through Achilles, and he stiffened, shifting away from Mycah and glancing toward the office door.
Mycah’s mother.
He didn’t need an introduction for her identity to be confirmed. Even if he hadn’t done a deep dive on Mycah after the interview, it would’ve required only one glance at the older woman to determine their relationship. Though instead of her daughter’s riotous curls, she wore her dark brown hair ruthlessly straight, they shared the same oval-shaped, chocolate eyes, elegant facial features and wide, generous mouth. The same smooth, brown skin. There were subtle differences, too.
A calculating hardness in her mother’s eyes that Mycah hadn’t yet adopted.
Faint lines fanned out from the older woman’s mouth, as if she spent an inordinate amount of time with it pursed in disapproval. Which was a shame.
One day, would Mycah wear the same lines? Carry identical shrewdness in her gaze?
He glanced at her, and a weight settled on his chest. So heavy he fought the urge to rub it away.
