She freezes. Not fear. I know what fear looks like in a body. How it shrinks people, makes them lean away. She’s not doing that. She’s holding her ground while I invade her space.
My chest is inches from her back. The curve of her neck. The small hairs at her nape. Her pulse jumping just below her jaw. Coffee and underneath it, her. Warm. Clean.
My lungs expand. Heat radiating off her skin. If I leaned forward another inch, my chest would press against her back.
My body holds. Not forward. No retreat.
“The shipping routes,” I say. My voice comes out lower than I intended. Rougher.
She pulls up another file, her typing steady even though my breath moves her hair. The strands shift. Goosebumps rise along her nape.
“They use three main corridors.” Her voice is even. Controlled. She’s working to keep it that way. “Port of New Orleans for international. Highway 90 for domestic traffic. And the river, when they need to move without paperwork.”
“Personal space exists,” she says.
She doesn’t move.
“Not for you.” The words slip free before I catch them. “Not in my office.”
I put her here. Chose this. Could have given her space anywhere in the house. Instead I installed her across my own desk. Where I work. Where I think. Where I’ve kept a place of solitude.
I invited her into my territory. And now I’m the one who can’t stay away.
She turns her head. Not enough to look at me. Just enough to show the line of her profile, the curve of her mouth. Her lips are parted. Her eyes half-closed.
If I leaned down. If I turned her chair. If I?—
“Then make yourself useful and get me more coffee.”
I step back. Cross to the corner where Nonna Rosa keeps a pot warming. Pour coffee into her cup. Two sugars.
When I set the cup beside her keyboard, she doesn’t look up. Just cradles it and takes a sip.
“You know how I take it.”
Not a question.
Silence is the only safe reply.
I return to the window. Put distance between us. My hands won’t settle. I fold my arms across my chest and force myself to become a statue.
She keeps working. I keep watching.
She leans back and closes the laptop. “That’s everything I can access from here. The rest requires hardware I don’t have.”
“We can arrange that.”
“I figured.” She looks at me. Not a glance. A study. “You’ve been standing there all day.”
“I’m supervising.”
“You’re staring.”
Denial would be a lie.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”
The question comes out before I can swallow it. I’ve been turning it over since the moment I kicked in her door and she met my eyes instead of looking away.
