Bastian is already there. He stands at the head of the table, frowning at something on his tablet. He looks like he always does: perfect and remote, like a beautiful mountain range. He doesn’t look up when I enter.
“Morning,” I say. It sounds way too fawning for my liking.
“Good morning, Ms. Hunter.” He couldn’t say it any flatter. “Please have a seat. We’ll begin shortly.”
Ms. Hunter,he calls me. Like we didn’t spend Friday night tangled together in a movie theater. Like he didn’t bury his face between my thighs on my kitchen counter. Like he didn’t sing me Russian lullabies in the shower while I fell apart in his arms. Like, like, like…
I lower myself into a chair and immediately regret it when my bruised ass makes contact with the seat. I bite back a wince and force myself to smile as everyone else joins us.
Once we’re all assembled, Bastian launches into the agenda without preamble. His voice remains blunt and emotionless the whole time.
I try to catch his eye. Just once. Just long enough to confirm that I didn’t imagine everything. But he never looks at me.
I try to grab him before the meeting ends, but he slips out and vanishes before I’ve even lifted myself halfway out of my seat.
I stop by his office at lunch. Patricia tells me he’s in back-to-back calls.
I send him an email markedUrgent. It bounces like he’s blocked me.
By three o’clock, I’m standing outside his door when he emerges with his coat already on. “Bastian, we need to?—”
“Not now, Ms. Hunter.” He doesn’t even slow down. “I have an off-site meeting.”
“When will you be back?”
“Late.”
He disappears into the elevator before I can follow.
I’m left standing there in the hallway, staring dumbly at the closed elevator doors. My ass still throbs with every movement. My palms still tingle where he bandaged them. I can still feel the ghost of his hands on my throat, his voice in my ear.
You’re mine.
Apparently not during business hours, though.
I return to my cubicle and try to focus on work, but the words on my screen blur together. Every time someone walks past, I look up, hoping it’s him.
It never is.
I stay late. Not because I have work to do—though I obviously have a reprehensible amount of work to do—but because I need to see him so he can explain what the hell happened.
Little by little, most of the office empties out around me. Six o’clock becomes seven. Seven becomes eight. The cleaning crew arrives and departs. Bastian never shows. Still, I wait.
Finally, at 9:42, the elevator dings.
Bastian emerges, his coat slung over one arm, his tie loosened. He looks exhausted. There are shadows under his eyes that weren’t there this morning.
He doesn’t see me at first. I’m standing in the hallway between his office and the elevator bank, directly in his path.
When he finally notices me, he stops.
For a moment, neither of us moves. We just stare at each other across ten feet of carpeted hallway.
Then I step forward, closing the distance until I’m standing directly in front of him. If I’m all he can see, he can’t pretend I don’t exist.
“Look at me,” I demand softly.
His eyes remain fixed somewhere over my left shoulder.
