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“Is it working?”

She drops the curtain and looks at me. Her face is back to perfect, closed up tight, giving me nothing. “No.”

“Your neck says different, Zayka.”

She doesn’t touch her neck. Points for control. But the color is still there, and we both know it.

I take her down the east wing next. She stops at the locked door without me saying anything. Just stops in front of it like she knew it was there, which means she’s been counting doors the whole time. Smart. Sneaky. I’d have done the same.

“Not for you,” I warn.

“What’s in it?”

“Nothing you need.”

She looks at the door for a second, then keeps walking. No argument. She’s saving it for something that matters, I’ve already clocked that about her. Doesn’t waste words on a fight she can’t win. Smart. Pain in my ass, but smart.

The library gets her. I see it, that split second where the room punches through before she can slam the door on it. Books everywhere, floor to ceiling, old ones, came with the house. She looks at the shelves, and something real shows up in her eyes for the first time all day.

“You read?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “You?”

“Yes,” she says. She moves to the nearest shelf and runs one finger along the spines. I watch her do it and think about those fingers wrapped around my cock, and then I make myself stop because that’s not useful right now. Too late. I’m already hard. I shift my weight and adjust myself, and she’s got her back to me so at least I’ve got that going for me.

“Take whatever you want,” I say.

She looks at me like she’s waiting for the catch. There isn’t one this time. She goes to move and then her eyes drop, just for a split second, just long enough, and she sees exactly what’s going on in my pants. Her eyes come back up fast and I wink at her. Her jaw tightens and she walks out of the library without a word.

Upstairs. I show her the hallway, four doors she can use, two she can’t. She nods at each locked door like she’s making a list, because she is. I know she is.

“My guys are downstairs all night,” I tell her. “East gate switches every four hours. Cameras on the garden, the front, the sides. And don’t be stupid about the roof.”

“I wasn’t thinking about the roof,” she says.

“Good.”

“I was thinking about the basement.”

I look at her. She looks at me and smiles, aiming it at me like a weapon. She’s enjoying this as much as I am, she just won’t admit it.

“Also locked,” I say.

“Of course.”

Her room is the last stop. Best room in the house, big windows, its own bathroom. I had it redecorated these last couple of days. Not for her. For me, because a woman thinking about thread count isn’t thinking about whatever she’s actually up to.

Except it’s not her room. It’s mine. Our room. I didn’t tell her that yet.

She walks in, drops her bag on the bed, turns around slowly. Takes in the windows, the layout, the wardrobe against the wall. She crosses to it, pulls it open, and stops.

My clothes. All of them. Shirts, jackets, the works.

She closes the wardrobe. Opens it again like she’s checking she saw what she saw. Closes it.

“This is your room,” she says.

“Our room,” I say.