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I followed her in for our morning briefing. Saadiq was already there with Yoli and two portfolio managers. I took my usual seat and opened the tablet Reign had set on the table in front of me. I passed Saadiq’s coffee to him and slipped out of my jacket.

He glanced at me, nothing new. Saadiq Masters was always looking at me. But then he looked again, a small frown on his gorgeous face. I ignored him.

“Bellamy sent the revised numbers last night,” I began. “I forwarded them to everyone, and legal should have⁠—”

“Topaz.”

I stopped.

“Yes?”

His eyes moved down my body. Any other time, I would have had something smart to say. But something about the softness in his eyes made all the quips and cracks dry up. God, please don’t let this man be pitying me because I would crumble right here and now.

He shook his head. “Continue.”

I lifted my chin. “As I was saying, Bellamy sent the revised numbers last night…”

The thirty-minute briefing flew by, the feeling of normalcy returning as I reviewed information, answered questions, and made suggestions. At the end, Saadiq requested to see me in his office. Not out of the ordinary, but given the way things had been going this morning…

His door was barely closed before I was speaking. “Please let this be about Bellamy or the Hayashis or anything but Saturday night. I don’t want⁠—”

“Apple,” he said softly.

“What?” I mumbled.

Wordlessly, he touched the front of his own shirt and raised an eyebrow. Confused, I looked down.

Oh. Oh!

My blouse was buttoned wrong. Not enough to expose anything, despite my generous breasts. One missed button near the top had left the entire placket slightly crooked. Heat rushed into my face.

“I’ll be back,” I said stiffly.

I escaped to the restroom and locked myself inside a stall. How the hell had I done that? I had been dressing myself for most of my twenty-nine years, but you couldn’t tell. I fixed the blouse, smoothed it into my skirt, and exited the stall. I stared at myself in the mirror. My makeup was flawless. My hair was perfect. I looked like me again.

So why didn’t I feel like me?

I trudged back to Saadiq’s office.

“Apologies. You could’ve told me earlier,” I said.

He looked at me almost sympathetically. “I didn’t want to draw attention to it in front of everyone else.”

I nodded. “What were you saying before I had to leave?”

“Come see me at lunchtime, okay? I need to talk to you about something, and Lori is taking a long lunch today,” he explained.

I searched his dark brown eyes, looking for a clue, any indication of what he needed to discuss. But Saadiq was a master of the poker face, and I knew he would tell me what he wanted to know when he wanted me to know it. Because part of me was in my vulnerable, stupid feelings, I blurted out, “Am I being fired?”

His eyes widened in shock, and I wanted to melt through the floor. I was excellent at my job, I knew that. Saadiq Masters trusted me more than anyone else in this building. Why the hell had I⁠—

My thoughts stopped as he stood up. I should be heartbroken right now, but all I could think about was how gorgeous this man was as he approached me.

“Apple… fuck, no. Shorty, why would you think that?”

Shorty? Yeah, I had knocked him off his square. “Apple” was about as much as he pushed it at work.

I shrugged, tried to laugh nonchalantly. I winced as it came out sounding like a bark. Those bottomless dark eyes took it all in, a small wrinkle settling between them.