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It was already well beyond that.

“I’m not joking, for once. I can’t sleep with you anymore. Let’s put all of that behind us; keep this strictly professional.

“You don’t mean it,” I told her reasonably. “You’re upset. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were upset. What can I do to make it right?”

“It’s not like that. Let’s not do this. It’s over. No need to make it a thing. It’s just over. We’ll move on.”

It was not even a proper break up scene. She was relentless and stone-faced. Even in this she couldn’t do things predictably. She wasn’t heartbroken or hysterical.

Her eyes were dryer than my dick right then.

It was startling and demoralizing how quickly she had me willing to beg. “Please don’t do this. We can fix this. There’s no reason on earth to end it. Please,” I repeated, soft and heartfelt.

She studied me for a while and it felt merciless, no softening in her eyes for me at all. “One question. That’s all we need to settle this for good. Has any of this meant anything to you?”

I blinked at her, all of the steam leaving my body.

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay, so what has it meant?”

She was smarter than me. It was a problem.

I tried to level with her, because I knew where she was leading the conversation. It could only end one way.

Of course, she knew that too.

I answered her, and it wasn’t clean and neat, nowhere near wrapped up in the perfect package that it needed to be. “I don’t want to stop,” I said, as sincere as I’d ever been. “I want this to keep going—us—a permanent arrangement.”

“Why?”

“Excuse me?” I honestly didn’t understand the question.

“Why do you want it to keep going? Because the sex is good?”

I started to answer with an obvious yes, but I was smarter than that.

Yes was obviously a trap. “First of all, that’s an understatement. The sex is phenomenal,” I began—

“Exactly!” she said it like it was an aha moment, and I knew I’d still stepped into that damned trap even though I’d seen it from a mile away. “I’m embarrassed to admit that I was trying to turn this into something more than it ever was,” she said. “It was foolish of me, but that doesn’t change the facts.”

I was stunned. Blindsided by her words. She was so stoic that she’d left me more than half in the dark. Was she saying now that she had feelings for me? And if so, what exactly were those feelings? And were they already gone, before she’d even given me a goddamn heads up?

I’d have really liked to know.

A part of me, some strange little, itchy twinge in my chest needed to know.

“Listen,” I said, rallying again for control of the situation. “You’re blowing this out of proportion. Clearly we need to have a talk about our expectations… and our feelings.” Boy, that word was a doozy to get out of my mouth, but it felt necessary. “And that text you saw, I didn’t even open it on purpose. And my response was clearly a joke. It didn’t mean anything—”

“This is my point. None of this means anything, and that is not the type of person I want to be. I want to mean something. I want my actions to mean something, and that something shouldn’t be that I can’t control my own hormones. This is done, Turner, and if you’re true to your word, I can keep working here as though this never happened. Business as usual, lives back to normal.”

My fists were clenched, and the itchy twinge in my chest had worked itself deeper, turning into a bitter ache.

An ache I’d never felt before, and didn’t know what to do with, and was profoundly unequipped for.

“My word is solid,” I said dully, a little in shock at how quickly this had gotten out of hand and escalated to this conclusion. “So fine, if this is what you want, what you insist on—”

“I do,” she interrupted. “I insist.”