Page 33 of Sexting His Assistant

“Like you’ve been running.”

I look down at myself. Dress wrinkled. Hair loose. Thighs still shaking. Pulse still reckless. “Yes,” I say quickly. “Exactly. Running.”

“You were running?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means movement happened.”

Another pause. “Nina.”

I straighten immediately, even though he cannot see me. Misha has had that effect on me since I was a child. One ‘Nina’ in that voice and suddenly I’m eight years old again, hiding a broken vase behind the curtains.

“What?” I ask too brightly.

“Why were you running at work?”

Because your best friend put his mouth between my legs on a conference table and I’ve not yet rejoined society.

“Printer emergency,” I say.

The lie arrives from nowhere.

It’s not a good lie. It’s not even a medium lie.

It’s the kind of lie a person tells when half her brain has melted, and the other half is still thinking about Luka Kazan’s tongue.

Misha says, “Printer emergency?”

“Yes.”

“At Kazan Tower?”

“Yes.”

“You personally ran because of a printer?”

“It was urgent.”

“How urgent can paper be?”

“You would be surprised.”

“I would not.”

I press two fingers to my temple. “Misha, why are you calling?”

“To check on you.”

“Why?”

“Because I had a feeling.”

I look toward the closed boardroom door.

Great. Wonderful. My brother has developed slutty-event radar.