He hung up and gestured for me to stand. I turned toward the door then froze when his hand settled at the small of my back, guiding me forward with a pressure so subtle it could almost be professional.
Almost.
Heat flooded through me at the intimate touch. God, I’d been on overdrive since my run-in with the masked man Friday night, and the email I’d woken up to this morning hadn’t helped matters at all.
I stepped out of the office just in time to watch Elisa storm off, her pout too theatrical to be anything but staged. My stomach twisted. If she’d been dismissed so easily, what chance would I have? Ethan walked her to the elevator, and when it dinged, she stepped inside.
A very confused Micah stepped out, brows knitting the second his gaze flicked from Reid to me, like he’d walked into the wrong movie halfway through.
Mr. Reid stepped around me, his hand falling away, and addressed him.
“You wanted to see me, Sir?”
Micah blinked between us again, brows pulling tighter as if the movie had only gotten stranger.
“You’ll help her get settled,” Reid said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I want her workstation set up.” He gestured to the large desk directly outside his office. “Make sure she has access to the appropriate systems, security clearance, whatever she needs.”
Micah’s lips parted, his usual quick wit knocked clean out of him. For once, he didn’t have a joke. “Of course, Sir.”
I swallowed hard. Settled? Executive wing? My brain stumbled over the words.
Fired, HR, assistant, under me.
Reid’s gaze shifted back to me. “I expect efficiency, Ms. Rhodes. You’ll find Mr. Carver helpful in smoothing the transition.”
Micah shot me a look—the kind only a friend could give—half reassurance, half demand for answers I didn’t have. Of course Reid would bring Micah in. He kept our systems running, the quiet backbone of the company. Micah should’ve been running the analyst floor. He was miles better than Stan, just hadn’t been there as long.
“Understood,” I said, even though that was the last thing I felt.
“Good.” Reid dismissed us both with a flick of his hand, like the decision had been made hours ago and we were only just catching up. His office door clicked shut behind him, and I jumped—finally taking the first full breath I’d managed since stepping onto this floor.
Micah looped his arm through mine and steered me toward the elevator. The second the doors slid shut, he turned on me. “You need to tell me what happened. Now.”
I laughed.
A jagged, breathless sound scraped out of my chest—wrong, wild, impossible to stop. The kind of laugh that made strangers back away, convinced you’d finally snapped.
Micah flinched, eyebrows shooting up, and I couldn’t blame him. I felt unhinged.
He shook his head. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know myself either, or the girl who had walked into Mr. Reid’s office. The girl who’d sent anemail last night to a man she didn’t know. The girl who couldn’t separate that man from someone who might hurt her.
Maybe that was the point. Because all weekend, I hadn’t been worried about my job. Only one thought kept circling my brain:
What if Iwantedhim to hurt me?
Well, maybe not just one thought.
The bottle of wine I’d emptied last night hadn’t silenced them. Not even after I had hit send on that rambling, reckless email.
The response waiting in my inbox this morning had been worse than silence. It had been cold, sharp. Intimate enough to cut.
My skin still buzzed with the echo of his words, as if they’d been written across me instead of a screen.
Sir is fine for now. I will call you Pet or Little one.
This morning, you are going to go into your meeting prepared. Don’t fidget. Hold your head up high. Accept whatever is dished out with dignity and grace.
