lit.
Tick-tock.
17
Adair
I am the worst boss in history. Not that I’m the boss, exactly, and I never will be if I can’t get my head on straight. My thoughts keep wandering between flashes of last night and the wicked skills Sterling demonstrated in bed and worry over what’s to come.
Because he knows. He finally knows.
I swore I would never tell him—never tell anyone. But burying my head in the sand isn’t going to work any more. It feels as though every moment between the day he left and the day he walked back into my life has been leading to this. And there’s so much more to wrap my head around: the FBI, the Bratva, the man he’s become, the man he wants to be. I can’t stop asking myself if he wants to be that man for me or for himself. I can’t decide if it’s an important differentiation. It feels like it is.
My phone rings. Sterling’s ear must be burning. Of course, I’m always thinking of him, so maybe not. I answer it expecting news from his meeting with Cameron Laird. “How did it go?”
“Exactly what I expected,” he says in a clipped tone that tells me his mind is elsewhere. “Look, something’s come up. You’re at your office, right?”
“Yes,” I say slowly.
“Thank God.” His relief is palpable. “Stay there.”
The demand moves my emotional barometer from introspective to paranoid in an instant. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve got everything under control,” he says.
That’s a pretty clear indication that things are out of his control.
“Sterling, tell me now.”
“Nikolai decided to make a little statement,” he says, continuing in a rush when I gasp. “He’s got Sutton, but I have a plan. If you can’t reach me this afternoon, don’t worry.”
“Oh, sure,” I hiss into the phone, hoping none of my colleagues can hear me. “I’ll just hang out here while you play cat and mouse with the Russian mafia. Are you ever not in trouble?”
“I guess not,” he says dryly. “I promise everything is fine. I know exactly who to talk to, and I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Don’t—”
“Worry,” I finish for him, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I know. I’ll just read a book.”
“Good idea,” he says, missing my sarcasm. “Love you.”
He hangs up before I can respond, and I’m left staring at my desk. I shove my phone back into my bag, feeling a little numb. There’s no way I can concentrate on edits for my first acquisition. I need to lose myself in a book, the way I only can on a first read. I rifle through a stack of possibilities someone’s plopped on my desk looking for one that will sweep me away from this mess, even for a few hours.
Stay there.
We’re going to have a serious talk about ordering me around later. For now, I’m forced to comply. The last thing he needs is for Nikolai to grab me, too. I get the impression he can compartmentalize and handle this like he claims. I’m not so sure he’d be able to do that if I’m involved. Or maybe I’m reading too much into his need to repeatedly tell me I belong to him when we’re in bed. Either way, I’m stuck in the office for the day while my heart and my head are somewhere else. None of the manuscripts in my slush pile grab me, and then it hits me. In all the chaos, I’d nearly forgotten about the secret I found in a locked drawer at the Eaton.
I pull my mother’s manuscript out of my black Louis Vuitton Neverfull tote, Poppy’s congratulations-on-the-new-job gift. Trust her to know how to make me look like a professional, even when I show up to work in a loose, linen sundress without make-up. I need all the help I can get. I’d barely had time to swing by the Eaton, change, and grab the bag by the time I pried myself away from Sterling’s bed. So much has happened in the last two days, I haven’t even looked at it since I found it in the drawer. I can’t believe it’s only been two days. Maybe it’s spending so much time reliving the past with Sterling as we piece together our time apart, but it feels like years since I pried open the locked drawer at the Eaton and found her book. I trail my fingers over the title page, wishing I could unlock more than just the drawer.
My mother wrote a book. I