Page 26

No guard stepping out of the wallpaper.

No footsteps. Nothing. I’m alone.

I push the door open another inch with one finger, just enough to look in, and my stomach flips.

There’s a dark wood desk and a wall of filing cabinets.

This isn’t a guest room or a sitting room nobody uses.

This is his.

His office.

The place where he keeps the things he doesn’t want anyone else to see.

My heartrate picks up, accelerating at a pace that would probably have given me a stroke if I had seen this on a heart monitor.

If there’s anything in this house that tells me where Seraphina actually is, it’s in here.

Jackpot. I slip inside.

I close the door softly behind me as I don’t want anyone to hear a door closing and come to investigate.

Straightening up, I turn around to take in my surroundings and I stop short.

The first thing I notice is how clean this office is.

What a difference compared to my office at the hospital that looks like a paper company threw up in it.

Organized chaos, I like to say.

I know exactly where everything is, even if it makes my residents want to throw up because of how disorganized it is.

No, Nico’s office is pristine clean. Surgical clean, really. I bet I could swipe my finger across any surface and there wouldn’t be a speck of dust.

My eyes go to the desk first. It’s dark wood, worn smooth at the edges from actual use.

There’s a leather blotter, squared off perfectly with the corners while a capped fountain pen sits dead center like someone arranged it for a photo.

There’s a framed picture off to one side, angled just enough that I can’t see the front of it from here.

I’d have to walk around the desk, but I don’t have time for that, so I leave it and keep moving, even though I’m dying to know who means enough to Nico that he would frame a photo of them.

It smells like him in here and I take a deep breath, trying to figure out the underlying scents.

Cedar, I think.

And something that smells like clean linen.

I hate that I find this smell intoxicating.

Why couldn’t this man smell like sour cream and onion chips?

I shake my head, trying to disrupt my thoughts.

I don’t have time to be mad at my own hormones right now.

I have to move quickly as there’s no telling when Nico will finish his own breakfast and come back here.