Page 13 of Knight
"That's what should have been happening already."
Something moves across his mouth. The beginning of a smile that he catches before it fully forms, like a reflex he did not authorize. It changes his entire face for half a second — cracks the expensive composure, lets something underneath breathe — and then it is gone.
He is handsome. I noticed it last night in the hallway and I am noticing it again now and I resent both observations equally. He is handsome the way designer things are — crafted to make you want them and punish you for reaching. The kind of face that opens doors and ruins lives with the same easy grin.
Green eyes. Giovanni's green eyes, according to every tabloid and gossip column I have never admitted to reading. Dark hair pushed back like he ran his fingers through it twenty minutes ago and forgot about it. A watch on his left wrist that catches the overhead light — heavy, gold-edged, the kind of piece men like him inherit from fathers they do not talk about.
He is looking at me the way he looked at me in the hallway. Like I am a problem he has not figured out yet. Like the usual tools — charm, authority, wealth — are the wrong keys for this lock and he finds that interesting instead of insulting.
I keep my arms at my sides. I do not cross them. Crossing your arms is a tell. It saysI am protecting myself. I am not giving him that.
"You didn't call me in here to tell me about Marco," I say.
His mouth twitches again. That almost-smile.
"No," he says. "I didn't."
The Offer She Should Refuse
He pushes off the desk and stands straight and the distance between us shrinks by a third.
"I have a proposition," he says. "And I need you to hear all of it before you react."
"I don't make promises about my reactions."
That almost-smile again. He kills it faster this time.
"I want an arrangement. You and me. Exclusive. Physical. Ongoing." He says each word like he has rehearsed this, like he sat in this office and built the sentence from raw materials the way you build a contract — airtight, unemotional, every clause in place. "In return, I take care of your financials. Rent. Bills. Whatever your siblings need. Shoes. Tutors. Medical. All of it."
The words land in my chest one at a time, each one heavier than the last.
"You're offering to pay me for sex."
"I'm offering a mutual arrangement with clearly defined terms."
"That's a nicer way of saying the same thing."
"It's a different thing." He takes a half step closer. "I'm not buying a service. I'm proposing an exchange between two people who both get something they need."
"And what do you need?"
The question catches him. I watch it land — a micro-flinch behind his eyes, there and gone, like a door cracked open and slammed shut. He recovers fast. The charm slides back into place smooth as a loaded clip.
"Exclusivity. Availability. Someone who understands what this is and does not confuse it for something else."
"No feelings."
"No feelings."
He says it like a wall. Like a perimeter he is building with his own hands, brick by brick, while his body tells a completely different story. He is standing close enough now that I can smell him — whiskey and something darker underneath, cedar or sandalwood, the kind of scent that costs money and clings to your skin for hours after.
His breathing has changed. Shallow. Faster at the top of each inhale. He probably does not know I can see it — the slight lift of his chest under that unbuttoned collar, the pulse in his throat ticking a beat too quick for a man delivering a business proposal.
His eyes are on my mouth. He moves them back to mine a half-second too late.
This is not a man offering a transaction. This is a man who saw me in a hallway and could not sleep afterward and built an entire framework of rules and boundaries around the wanting so he could stand in front of me and pretend he is in control.
I know what want looks like when a man is trying to bury it. I have danced for hundreds of them. The difference is that none of them ever looked at me like I was dangerous.
