Page 224 of Sexting His Assistant

She sits on the edge of the bed, slowly, one hand going to the back of her head when the movement pulls at the bruised spot. I step forward automatically, then stop when she lifts her other hand.

Nina says, “I’m okay.”

“You swayed on the stairs.”

“I was being dramatic.”

I shake my head. “Your concussion has terrible timing.”

Nina says, “It’s my brand.”

She manages to settle against the pillows with only a little help, though she does allow me to adjust the blanket over her legs. I do it carefully, tucking it around her without touching more than necessary, and the domesticity of the gesture hits me so unexpectedly that I go still.

She is in my bed. Not my bed, but a bed in my house.

Her phone on the table.

Her hair loose around her shoulders.

Her face pale but alive.

For one brief, dangerous second, I see another version of this room. Nina here without injury. Nina waking in morning light, arguing about breakfast, leaving books open on the chair, putting her cold feet under my leg at night because she thinks being irritating is a form of affection. Nina downstairs with my mother, in my kitchen, in the garden, in the long rooms that have always felt too large for one man and his rules.

The thought’s so clear that it frightens me. I step back.

Nina notices. “What?”

I say, “Nothing. Just rest for now.”

“That was an escape,” Nina says.

“Yes,” I say.

She is too tired to fight me properly, but her gaze lingers.

I leave before she can ask again.

In the hallway, I stand with one hand against the wall and force myself to remember who I am. I made vows long before Nina Hale grew into a woman who could undo me with one tired look from a hospital bed.

No marriage. No children.

No family of my own that could be used against me.

My mother is my one unmovable weakness, and even that has shaped every decision I have made since my father died. I built walls around her. Men around the walls. Money around the men. Fear around the money.

I know what love costs in my world.

I have watched men become careless for wives, foolish for sons, predictable for daughters. I have watched enemies discover the right name and turn powerful men into beggars by holding a threat against the people they loved.

I swore I would never give anyone that kind of handle on me.

I would not marry.

I would not have children.

I would not build a soft room inside myself and hand another person the key.

Then Nina came into my life.