“No one does that!”
“So you’re just going to keep trying to get me to accept your letter, no matter what? What else do you want?” Silver asked.
“I told you,” Nuri closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, “I’m tired and I’m unhappy. I need a change.”
“Unhappy?” Silver almost appeared upset, but the expression was gone as quickly as it came, leaving Nuri wondering if he’d imagined it. “For how long?”
Nuri frowned at him, silently asking him to elaborate.
“How long have you been unhappy with me?”
If he didn’t know better, Nuri would think he’d hurt the Emperor’s feelings. But it would take a lot more than a flippant statement like that to cut through Silver’s ironclad exterior.
“Does it matter?” Nuri ended up asking, and though he’d meant it to be rhetorical, the Emperor replied anyway.
“How can you expect me to improve if I don’t understand what it is I did wrong in the first place?” Silver ran a hand through his hair. “Fine. You said you’d work until your ankle healed without complaint? Let’s table the rest of this discussion until the end of the week then.”
“That isn’t going to solve anything,” Nuri said. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“Then we’re at a stalemate because neither am I.”
Nuri cocked his head, realizing where this was going. “You think you can find a way to convince me in a week? Not possible.”
“Why?” Silver challenged. “Because you’ve been planning this for over a year now?”
He sucked in a breath and stilled under that accusatory gaze.
“Did you think I wasn’t aware?” Silver quirked a brow. “Of course I knew.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” All this time, he’d thought he’d kept a tight lid on the secret, worried that he might be discovered and how the Emperor would react if he ever was. Now he was learning that all that anxiety was for nothing and he’d actually known the whole time?
“There was never a need,” Silver told him, “since you never brought it up yourself. If you weren’t going to act, I certainly wasn’t going to risk pushing you in that direction. But since we’re here now, I may as well make myself perfectly clear.”
Silver leaned down, resting his palms flat on the end of the bed, and the dark, intense heat in his gaze had Nuri’s lungs locking up. All at once, that heavy, tight feeling of the room closing in on him returned full force and then some. “Whether it’s as your emperor, your CEO, or something else, you are mine Nuri, and I have no intention of ever letting you go.”
“I’m not an object.” For the life of him, Nuri had no clue how he managed to find his voice amidst the pounding in his ears and the very real sense of danger cloying at his insides, but he did. “Keeping me against my will is illegal.”
“To hell with laws,” Silver said. “You know I’ve never cared about such things anyway.”
“You’re the emperor,” he reminded. “It’s your duty—”
“And you’re mine,” he cut him off, holding his gaze captive as he spoke. “What about your duty to me?”
“That’s not—”
“I’m barely keeping myself controlled as it is,” Silver stated, “I advise you to be careful selecting your next words.”
Nuri grew silent, unsure of what to say. He’d known it was a long shot and had figured the Emperor would fight him on resigning but…He honestly hadn’t anticipated this level of possessiveness.
“Guaranteed yearly leave to see your siblings whenever you’d like,” Silver offered then. “Provided you give at least a month’s notice so I can prepare and come with you. I’ll also give you a raise, how does another three-thousand-coin sound?”
“Sir—”
“Your brother’s been wanting to get into Flir Corp. I know the CEO. I can get him the job so he can quit that crappy one he’s been forced to work to make ends meet.”
“Nate is capable enough and can get his own job.” That wasn’t just brotherly pride speaking either, it was the truth. Nate had graduated top of his class.
“He’s applied three times already and been rejected. Why he still wants to work there is beyond me, but according to him, he does. Besides,” the calculation in Silver’s eyes gave him away before his words did, “your brother won’t be able to find a job anywhere with a criminal record.”
