“Nico’s is walking distance to work,” she pointed out. “And to you.”
That last line wasn’t meant to be soft. But it was. And he heard it.
His eyes didn’t narrow, but something in them tightened. “I see.”
Bea reached for her sleep shirt and pulled it on like armor. “I figured you’d want me close.”
“I want you here.”
She shook her head, slipping out of bed. She approached, then sat sideways on his lap.
“How about walking distance?” she asked as his arms went around her lightly. “That way we both get what we want, don’t we?”
He exhaled softly through his nose, almost amused.
He saw it. What she’d done by giving him what he wanted—her proximity, the rhythm of daily reach—without giving him the win.
“You thought this through,” he murmured.
“I did.” She pulled his tie through her fingers, doing it up while he watched her. She couldn’t help the triumphant little smile from peeping through.
“Not bad, sweetheart,” he said. Then he leaned in and kissed her.
She knew that was the closest he’d come to admitting she’d outplayed him.
Chapter Seven
Two weeks in, and Bea had found a rhythm. Early alarms, coffee from the machine that hissed like a warning, twenty-two-minute walk from Nico’s pool house to her office in Northgate.
The office was colder than expected, bright and sterile, as high-stakes places often were. Bea had no door, no title. But there was a desk with her badge clipped to it, a login that worked, and a break room with a mug she’d already decided was hers.
The first few days, she’d caught the glances. Curiosity. They hadn’t asked how she got here. She was pretty sure everyone knew who she was dating. They were waiting to see if she was here to work or to cruise.
By the end of week one, her supervisor had started including her in internal calls. The start of week two, she was drafting summaries and sending them without being asked. She was learning to keep pace, even if the terrain was unfamiliar.
And she loved it.
Not every hour. Not every meeting. But the quiet exhilaration of finishing something she didn’t know she could, of not being coddled, but just included, made the days speed past.
She was getting somewhere. Her team had stopped double-checking her math. Today, her supervisor handed her a live brief with no warning, no explanation, just a: “Take a crack at it.”
She brought it with her to Gage’s penthouse. Her laptop glowed on the kitchen island, surrounded by annotated printouts and a nearly empty glass of sparkling water.
Gage leaned back on the island beside her, a slim deck of French vocabulary cards fanned neatly at his elbow.
Bea turned her screen toward him. “It’s not landing.”
He barely glanced at it. “You’re presenting data. Not a decision.”
“It’s a market analysis.”
“It’s noise. What’s your conclusion?”
She bit her lip. “That we should pivot marketing spend to Solution B.”
“Then lead with that. Everything else is backup.”
“That’s slide five.”
