The problem was, pretending didn’t quiet the noise in his head or the ache in his chest or keep the minutes from crawling by.
The manor had been quiet since ten. He watched the clock. 11:36. 11:41. 11:44. He tried sitting, but the chair felt like a stall. Midnight was the rule. He’d never liked rules that kept him from what he wanted.
11:45.
He stripped to boxers. Honest felt better than armor. At the nightstand, he lifted the lid on a fresh box of condoms, hesitated, and brought the whole thing like an apology gift. From the floral arrangement on the table in the hallway, he impulsively plucked a pink peony.
Barefoot, he took the stairs. One step creaking. The hallway light threw a soft path. At her door, the cat waited in a cage like a tiny warden, pupils black as judgment.
Marcus crouched. “I promise I’ll eventually tell her the truth,” he told the feline. “Face the consequences for being an unredeemable asshole. You have my word.”
The cat blinked once, unimpressed.
Marcus rolled his shoulders back, set his breath, and noticed the sign on the door.
Chapter 33
Frankie stood in her bedroom, second-guessing her decision to turn tonight’s third chance for Marcus into a sexy role-play…complete with costume and props. Trench over black lingerie: a sheer-mesh balconette bra with satin straps, a barely-there thong, and a slim garter belt clipped to thigh-highs. On her feet, black Gianvito Rossi stilettos that meant business. Black glasses she actually wore to cut screen glare. Real hair in a bossy knot. Pocket notebook. Freshly sharpened pencil. And one tube of Dior Rouge 999 lipstick.
On the bedroom door, she’d taped a neat card: MISS UNDERSTOOD INVESTIGATIONS—FIELD INTERVIEW IN PROGRESS.
She exhaled. Would he read it and knock? Or run away…again.
Her pulse leapt, then misfired when the hallway creaked to life. Marcus. Too late to back out now.
The plan had been born in the shower and fed by a mean, familiar thought: what if the problem was her, not him? What if Marcus hadn’t finished because she was the whiny girl a fatheronce said wasn’t worth staying for? Heat pricked behind her eyes. She set her shoulders and used the line her therapist drilled into her. “I am not the problem,” she told the room. Again. “I am not the problem.”
Still, her fingers went clumsy on the trench belt. Role play had seemed brilliant an hour ago. Now it felt like placing her heart’s file on his desk and stamping it open case.
The steps stopped outside the door. A pause. Then, faint through the wood, what might have been a single, low word. Unredeemable. Followed by a knock.
She wrapped her hand around the cool knob and let the metal calm the shake in her fingers, before cracking the door like a speakeasy window. “Evening. Miss Understood Investigations. Field interview.”
Marcus stood in the lamplight wearing nothing but boxers, that impossible body, and a peony pinched between two fingers like he’d mugged the field behind the manor. Sir Hissalot sat in a covered carrier on the hallway runner, a lumpy silhouette of grievance. If feline side-eye could set fires, the manor would be ash.
“Press?” His gaze tracked down, hooked on the knot at her waist, then came back up slower. Heat gathered.
“Fact-checking a rumor.” She flipped open her notebook, pencil poised. “Multiple sources allege a pattern of incompletion. Roof shingles. Kitchen cabinets. Climaxes. I require your comment on the record.”
“That’s libel,” he said, voice already lower than decency.
“Excellent. I adore writing retractions.” She stepped back.
He crossed the threshold and handed her the ridiculous flower and the box of condoms. “I was taught always to bring a gift when invited to a woman’s…office.”
Something traitorous in her chest lifted. “As long as they are not a bribe,” she said, closing the door and turning the lock. She slid the condoms onto the nightstand within easy reach and tucked the peony into her half-empty water glass on the dresser.
Then she faced him, loosened the knot of her belt with two fingers, and let the coat slide off her shoulders.
He went still. Not the frozen kind. The reverent kind. His attention fixed wholly on her.
She bent to gather the coat, giving him the long line of back and legs, then crossed to the coat rack. She took her time fishing her pencil and pad from the pocket. When she turned, his gaze was locked on her ass, hot and unguarded.
“Ground rules,” she said, because if she didn’t keep talking, she might climb him then and there. “Verbal yes from both of us. I direct the interview; you may ask for clarifications. Safe word is banishment.”
“Safe word?”
“It happens rarely, but sometimes interviews get out of hand. Any issue with roughness?”
