I looked at the window. The real one.
The glass was high, timber-framed, and currently draped in the soft, deceptive gold of a Mara Khaya afternoon. The glass reflected the room back at me: leather chairs, stacked books, the heavy mahogany table.
In the photo, Nick and I sat too close for professional distance and not close enough for any honest scandal. My shoulder was inches from his chest. His head tilted toward mine. Nothing touched, nothing showed, nothing happened that could justify the cold pulse in my throat. The damage lived in the angle. The photograph turned a ranger trained to watch the edge into a man watching me instead.
It had been taken from above. Not from the guest path, which sat ten feet lower, and not from the main deck. To get that line of sight, someone had to be in the canopy or perched on the utility roof.
Someone had come close enough to choose the story.
Scandal was the bait. I was a grown woman. I could survive a leaked photo.
Of absolutely nothing actually scandalous, I might add.
His hand wasn’t on me. My mouth wasn’t near his. Nothing in the frame could convict us of anything except proximity, and even that required imagination.
But whoever sent it had framed the photograph like gossip for a reason. The message underneath was colder: proof of life. Proof of access.
I can see you, the photo said.And I know exactly where his attention goes when it leaves the perimeter.
A brittle laugh carried in from the bar, too sharp to be amusement. Beneath it ran the low, restless murmur of guests who had run out of patience and acceptable language. Glassware clicked. Voices tightened. Somewhere beyond the library wall, civilization was thinning, while someone had photographed me through glass like a specimen.
The side door creaked.
I didn’t turn immediately. First came the breath. Then the CEO mask, seated firmly over the woman who still felt the ghost of a thumb against her jaw.
Nick stepped in, tired enough that the afternoon light carved deeper shadows beneath his cheekbones. But his posture still held a trace of the man he’d been with me before the message arrived. Looser. Warmer. Unarmored by a dangerous inch.
My face stopped him. His shoulders shifted, chest expanding as he drew air. “What happened?”
His voice was calm. That was the problem.
“Someone sent me a photograph,” I said.
I held the phone up, the screen still dark. He stepped into my space, and my body made the mistake of wanting him there. My brain looked past his shoulder, straight to the window. He held out his hand, palm up, an unspoken command for the device.
“You can look,” I said. “Chain of custody stays with me.”
A flicker of something—recognition, perhaps—crossed his eyes. He didn't argue. He leaned in, his gaze dropping to the screen as I tapped it awake.
His face closed. His body organized. The man disappeared behind the job.
The transition was terrifyingly efficient. Hours ago, he’d fucked me in a storage closet with the kind of focus that should have required paperwork afterward.
Now he stood in front of me like wanting me had become evidence. His jaw locked, the muscle jumping once beneath the copper-brown shadow of his beard. Every trace of heat left his face as he mapped the image.
All warmth drained from the air between us. I felt the draft of his withdrawal before he even moved his feet.
“When?” he asked. His voice had dropped into a command register so cold it felt structural.
“Three minutes ago.”
“Did you click a link? Anything attached?”
“I didn’t click anything, Nick. I screenshotted the frame, preserved the sender information, and touched nothing else.”
He didn’t look at me. His gaze stayed on the photo, already measuring it against the lodge.
“That’s the western utility roof,” he muttered, more to himself than me. “Or the leadwood tree near the generator. That line of sight is supposed to be screened by the Acacia. Someone cut a window through the brush.”
