Underneath it, I write:
Who are you?
Then I stare at the words, pulse slow and steady now, the confusion sharpening into something more dangerous.
Resolve. Because nobody in this building wants to tell me the truth.
Which means I’m going to have to find it myself.
The break room is quiet for once.
No Owen. No Lina. No clatter of mugs and office gossip. Just the soft hiss of the coffee machine and the rain tapping faintly against the windows beyond the pantry door.
Good, I need a second to myself.
My whole day has felt like walking around with a bruise under my skin, tender everywhere. Every time I think I’ve shoved Aleksei far enough out of my mind to function, something dragshim right back in. A glance. A memory. The stupid way my body still seems to know exactly what his hands feel like.
I’m standing at the machine, watching dark coffee fill my mug, when a voice behind me says, very calmly,
“I heard you were asking about me today.”
I jump so hard the cup slips out of my hand. “Shit?—”
It hits the counter, tips, and spills coffee everywhere, splashing across the marble and down the cabinet doors. Some of it lands on my wrist, hot enough to sting.
I spin around.
Aleksei is standing in the doorway, one shoulder against the frame, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable.
My heart slams into my ribs. “I—” I look at the mess, then back at him. “You can’t just sneak up on people like that.”
“I wasn’t sneaking.”
“You appeared out of nowhere.”
His gaze flicks to the coffee spreading across the counter and then back to me. “Clearly.”
I grab a wad of napkins and start blotting at the spill, mostly so I have something to do with my hands. “Were you trying to kill me?”
He steps into the room, reaches past me for a towel, and says, “That would be a waste of perfectly good coffee.”
I blink.
Then, despite myself, a small, incredulous laugh escapes me.
Great. Wonderful. He ignores me all day and then shows up in the break room making dry little comments while my nervous system short-circuits.
He sets the towel over the worst of the spill and looks at me. “So,” he says. “You were asking around.”
I straighten, clutching the napkins. “Maybe.”
“About me.”
“Yes.”
His eyes narrow just slightly. “You were told not to.”
That stops me.
