“Comeon.” The words come out in a way brattier tone than I intend. “She’s my best friend, not some enemy operative.”
He shakes his head. “Sasha gave clear orders?—”
“I know what he said.” I lift a hand as I speak, slicing the air. “But I’m going crazy. I can’t live my life in a cage. I’m going completely insane. I need her. She’s my normal.”
He purses his lips for a moment, as if seeing my point. I take this as my cue to keep going.
“Listen, the longer I stay locked up like this, the more nuts I’m going to get. You don’t want me full-on disassociating or something. And this can’t be good for the babies. Like, think of it as a release valve. I spend a little time with her, take the pressure off, and that keeps me nice and calm and easy to manage, right?”
He studies me like a map upon which he has to plan a battle strategy. Behind his eyes, he’s assessing risk, weighing pros and cons. My gaze stays on him, letting him know I’m not just talking.
“We do this smart,” I say. “Or I do it alone. You know I will.”
Something shifts behind those pale, watery eyes, like he finally gets it. He crosses his arms, settles back against the counter. “You’re asking me to defy orders.”
“No, I’m asking you tointerpretthem. Sasha said to protect me, right? Well, keeping me mentally stable is part of that.”
He watches me a long time, the silence stretching until I can hear the faint ticking of the clock in the den. “If something were to happen to you?—”
“Nothing will happen,” I say before he can get going. “We’ll make it nice and quick. And you pick the place, control thetiming, choose the car. You can even check the damn bathroom stalls before I go in.”
That gets me a small smile. “You’ve been around him for too long. His hardheadedness is rubbing off.”
“Please. I already had a ton of that on my own.”
He gives me another trying-to-look-through-me stare. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”
No sense in lying. “Yeah, okay—there is. Don’t get me wrong; this is all about seeing Angie.But…”
“But?”
“Things have been awkward between Dandelion and AngelCorp since what happened between Sasha and Johan the day of the shooting. Sasha seems pretty confident they’re going to work it out, but I’m not convinced it’s as certain as he seems to think it is.”
“So you want to smooth things over.”
“Is that so bad? I can talk to Angie, maybe pass along a message to Johan. This merger is my baby, too. And there’s so much riding on it.”
I can almost hear the gears turning in his head. Bogdan’s a soldier, not a chess player. But even he knows when a move opens the board.
“And you trust her?” he asks. “I mean to say, you can rule out that she’s not working with Johan on some long-term scheme?”
“Of course I trust her!” The words come out totally shrill,embarrassingly so. “She’s been my best friend for years. I’ve known her for way longer than she’s known Johan.”
He drums his fingers on the counter. “You shouldn’t be involved in this, you know. Your job was to write the merger, nothing more. You’re not on the payroll to be some kind of corporate diplomat.”
“But Iaminvolved in this. And besides, the corporate stuff… just think of it as a little bonus. The idea here is that I get some bestie time, so I don’t go completely insane. If I manage to smooth things over a little between AngelCorp and Dandelion in the process, well, so much the better. right?”
His gaze sharpens as if something just came into focus. “You’re a stubborn woman, Miss Resse.”
I grin. “Consider it an occupational hazard.”
He pushes off the counter and steps over to the window. For a long while, there’s nothing but silence and that clock. Then he turns.
“One meeting,” he says. “Public place. I choose the location. No surprises.”
The relief hits so fast that my knees nearly give out underneath me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He glares at me, steady as a rock. “But if you so much as step off the curb without my say-so, I’ll hog-tie you and carry you back here myself. And Sasha will hear about it.”
