I take a deep breath in and my eyes close automatically rolling backwards.
I’ve always been a sucker for people that smell good and this man smells so good, I can feel the tension rising up between my thighs.
He pours his coffee, turns and leans back against the counter looking right at me.
I look back.
The silence goes on long enough that it stops being silence and starts being something else entirely. My pulse sits at a steady, inconvenient thud in my throat. The memory of last night decides to surface at exactly this moment, his back under the shower spray, the turn, the face, still there, grinning at me.
Don't.
"How did you sleep?" he asks.
His voice in the morning is lower. I file that away in the part of my brain that has apparently dedicated itself to cataloguing Rafael Caruso in excruciating detail against my explicit instructions.
"Well," I say. "Really well. Best sleep I've had in years, actually."
A complete and total lie, delivered with great confidence.
He holds my gaze. I hold his back. I am an excellent liar. I have been my entire life. It is one of the few things my upbringing gave me that I'm genuinely grateful for.
"Good," he says, and I can't tell what he does or doesn't believe.
Marco sets the frittata in front of me quietly and retreats to the far end of the kitchen. Bless him.
I pick up my fork. Rafael doesn't move from the counter. He just stands there with his coffee like he has nowhere to be, which I know is not true, which means he's choosing to be here, which I am not going to think about.
"Someone was in my office last night." He suddenly says and I freeze.
The fork manages to stay in my hand. My face stays exactly where I put it.
Shit; shit, shit. I’m going to die.
My heart isn’t just beating; it’s a trapped bird slamming itself against the bars of my ribs.
I’m screwed.
The "cold" in my chest has turned into a numbing frost, creeping up my throat, making it hard to swallow. I need to blink. I need to look away, but I can’t. His eyes are a physical weight, pinning me to the chair.
Does he know?
I run through the night again, a frantic, high-speed reel in my mind.
My mind screams.Which things?The letter-opener I’d shifted two inches to the left to see the ledger underneath? The silver clock I’d tilted to check for a hidden compartment? Or was it the scent? Did I leave a trace of my perfume, a microscopic flake of skin, a single strand of hair that now sat in a plastic bag in his desk drawer?
"S-Someone broke in?" I keep my voice curious. A degree or two below concerned.
His eyes are intense and not blinking. "Yes. No sign of a break-in. But things were moved. Small things. Whoever it was is either very careful or knows their way around." He takes a sip of his coffee. His eyes don't leave my face. "I don't believe in coincidences."
"That's — god, that's unsettling." I set my fork down because holding it suddenly feels like too much to manage. "Do-do you know who?"
"Not yet."
"Not yet," I repeat, my voice sounding thin and tinny in my own ears. I force a shudder, a real one this time, because my hands have started to shake. "You think it was someone we know?"
Oh lord! Please help me!
"I think," he says, leaning forward, the porcelain of his cup clicking against the marble countertop with the finality of a gavel, "that whoever it was didn't realize I keep a silent log of the door's digital entry. It wasn't forced because they used a key. A key I thought only I possessed."
