I’m halfway through pretending to work when Ava appears at my desk looking like she’s charging into battle.
“Emergency team meeting,” she hisses. “Now. Conference Room 4.”
“What? Why?”
“No idea. Probably boring corporate bullshit.”
Fantastic. Exactly what my nerves need.
I grab my notebook and follow the herd of bodies down the hall. The chatter is normal. Calm. Everyone is walking like this is just another meeting.
But the second I step inside the room…
My stomach drops into the floor.
Because at the head of the massive glass table, in a perfect crisp suit, sits Jaxon Cole.
He doesn’t look at anyone else.
His eyes lift.
Find me instantly.
And lock.
Heat slides down my spine.
I freeze, gripping my notebook like a weapon. Ava bumps into my back.
“Oh DAMN,” she whispers. “King of Corporate Hotness himself.”
I want to die.
Or evaporate.
Or both.
“Take a seat,” Jaxon says, smooth and controlled.
He’s not talking to me specifically.
But it feels like he is.
I slide into a chair as far from him as I can manage. It doesn’t help. His presence fills the room.
He starts the meeting, professional, poised, focused, but every time he speaks, his gaze flicks to me for a fraction of a second.
No one else notices.
But I do.
It’s intentional.
Calculated.
Predatory in the gentlest, most devastating way.
Then he says something that almost stops my heart.
