“No.”
That comes too fast.
I blink. “No?”
“Take the day off tomorrow.”
I sit down hard on the edge of my bed. “Excuse me?”
“I know you’re tired.” That, annoyingly, lands a little softer than the rest. Then he adds, in the same maddeningly even voice, “First time can be strenuous.”
I close my eyes. My entire face heats up instantly. “You are so irritating.”
“And yet,” he says, “you keep calling.”
I roll my eyes so hard it almost hurts. “This is not flirtation. This is protest.”
“Noted.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then, because apparently I hate myself, I ask, “You’re serious about tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I have work.”
“You have security outside your apartment and have been shot at twice in forty-eight hours by proximity. You are not going to work tomorrow.”
“That’s not how employment usually functions.”
“It is for you.”
I should argue more. I should tell him he doesn’t get to make decisions for me just because he has the budget of a small country and the emotional restraint of a mob boss in an expensive coat.
But I am exhausted. And sore. And if I’m being honest, the idea of not having to sit at my desk pretending I don’t remember exactly what his hands feel like is not the worst thing in the world.
Still, principle matters.
“At least tell me how long the men are staying,” I say.
“Until I decide otherwise.”
I lean back onto one elbow and stare at the ceiling. “That’s insane.”
“It’s practical.”
“For you.”
“For you,” he corrects.
I hate that the distinction makes my stomach flip. I hate more that I can hear the fatigue under his control now. The long day. The attack. Alena. His father. Me.
“You sound tired,” I say before I can stop myself.
The line goes quiet for half a second. Then, “So do you.” That softens something in me against my will.
I shift back onto the pillows and tug the blanket over my legs. “You know this is all very over the top, right?”
