Alaric looked up.His gaze swept over her in a single, efficient pass. Face. Posture. Tension. He saw everything. Alwayshad.
One brow lifted slightly.”Morning-after regret?” he asked.No judgment. No smugness. Just a clean, devastating assessment.
Sera swallowed. “It was an amazing night,” she said, because lying would’ve been pointless. “I won’t pretend otherwise.”
His eyes narrowed, just a fraction.
“But yes,” she continued. “It shouldn’t have happened. And it can’t happen again.”
For a long moment, he said nothing. The pan hissed. Coffee steamed. The house seemed to hold its breath.
Then he nodded once. “All right.”The wordwas calm. Final.
It shouldn’t have hurt. But, itdid.
He set the spatula aside and gestured to the stool across from him. “Sit. Eat.”
She hesitated, desire and discipline colliding so violently it made her lightheaded. Every instinct screamed to close the distance between them. To feel his hands again. His mouth. The quiet authority in the way he’d taken over her body and made her trust him withit.
No.
She forced herself to move, heels clicking softly as she crossed the kitchen. Shesat.
He plated breakfast with the same meticulous care he brought to boardrooms and crises. Eggs arranged neatly. Toast angled just so. Fruit added with absent-minded precision that made it worse, not better. He slid the plate toward her, then the mug, fingers stopping just short of touchingher.
The absence of contact wasloud.
They ate in uneasy silence at first, the normalcy of the act almost obscene given the significance of what sat between them.The silence stretched, elastic and unforgiving. Sera became acutely aware of the mundane mechanics of eating. The way her fork scraped softly against the ceramic. The way the chair creaked when she shifted. Thefact that her knee was inches from his and the heat of him stroked her through the space between.
She tried to focus on the food. Eggs perfectly cooked. Toast crisp but not dry. It was the kind of breakfast that spoke of habit and competence, of a man who took care of himself and expected order from his mornings.
Order.
The irony almost made her laugh.
Every bite was a negotiation. With her appetite. With her body. With the memory of how that same mouth had been used on her hours earlier. The domesticity of it was unbearable. This wasn’t a rushed goodbye or an awkward scramble for clothes. This was intimacy layered over consequence, and it made her chestache.
She sensed his attention on her even when he wasn’t looking directly. Aquiet awareness that tracked her movements, the way she swallowed, the way her fingers tightened around the mug. It wasn’t predatory. It was attentive. Thoughtful.
Which made it worse.
She could have handled indifference. She could have handled regret. What she struggled with was the steady presence of him, the sense that last night hadn’t destabilizedhim at all. That he was holding the line because he chose to, not because he didn’tcare.
That realization sent a fresh pulse of heat through her, unwelcome and undeniable.
She set her fork down carefully, breath steadying as she prepared to say the thing that had been forming since shewoke.
“I need you to understand why this can’t continue,” she said finally, forcing her voice to remaineven.
He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t deflect. He turned fully toward her, giving her his complete attention in a way both respectful and dangerous.
“I work for you,” she continued. “Not directly. But close enough that perception alone could destroy everything I’ve built.”She spoke slowly, choosing caution over emotion even as her pulse raced.”You’re not just my boss. You’re the man who decides who advances and who disappears quietly.” Her fingers curled around the edge of the table. “Even if you never abused that power, no one would believe that. And I won’t spend my career defending my competence against whispers.”
He remained silent, expression unreadable, giving her thespace to finish.
“If this continued,” she said, “every success I’ve earned would be questioned. Every promotion would come with an asterisk. And I would always wonder whether I deserved what I got—or whether people thought I didn’t.”She swallowed. “I won’t live like that.”
Alaric leaned back slightly, studying her with an intensity that made her skin prickle.”You’re right,” he said at last. “The cost would fall harder on you than on me.”
