Page 79 of The Associate
“Come on,” he said, his voice deliberately bright, nodding towards the glowing entrance. “Let’s go to the Club. That little twink you liked last time is surely waiting eagerly for your return. What was his name? Leo? Cameron? Lithe thing, could tie a knot with his tongue, if I recall.”
The description was meant to entice, to pull Gael back into the familiar, to remind him of the uncomplicated transactions that were their usual currency. It suddenly felt crude. Hollow.
Gael was already shrugging into his coat, the fine wool falling into place with a whisper. He didn’t look at the crimson light. “Not tonight,” he said, his voice flat.
The looks exchanged between Jaden, Adrian, and Sebastian were more telling than any comment. His refusal was a deviation from protocol. In their world, the club after dinner was as much a part of the ritual as the whiskey before it. To abstain, especially after such a charged moment, was unheard of.
Terse goodbyes were exchanged; a nod, a grunt, a murmured “Later.” Before they started toward the club. Gael turned the other way, towards the shadowed parking lot, alone.
He climbed into the car but didn’t start the engine. He sat, his hands resting on the cool steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the empty brick wall of the building opposite, seeing nothing.
The scene in the restaurant replayed behind his eyes vividly.
He dissected it, the way he would a flawed legal argument. The stimulus: Landen’s comment.Harmless. Typical of their years of barbed, intimate banter. Landen, for all his wolfish charm, was a friend. There was no real threat in his words, no actual challenge to any claim Gael had. Samuel was a stranger. An intriguing one, but not someone Landen would usually go for.
So why the surge? Why the visceral, knee-jerk reaction that felt less like banter and more like… marking territory?
It was stupid. It was undisciplined. It was a loss of control, a reveal of a hand he hadn’t even fully acknowledged to himself, and he had laid it bare.
He shook his head, a sharp, frustrated motion.
It was a fluke. An anomaly. A moment of fatigue.
Satisfied with the diagnosis, he turned the key. The engine purred to life, a smooth, powerful sound that severed the silence. He pushed the thoughts away. He locked them in a mental drawer and resolved not to open it again.
He pulled out of the parking lot, the city lights streaking past the windows. But as he drove into the night, the echo of his own thoughts trailed him, a stubborn, whispering ghost in the quiet cabin. A problem not solved, merely deferred, its shadow stretching long behind him on the empty road.
Chapter 21
Samuel
Samuel stood before the door, a small black duffel clutched in his hand like a life line. It was 8:05. He’d made himself wait the full five minutes after the hour, a pathetic, private act of rebellion that felt as significant as a scream in his chest.
He should knock. His knuckles hovered, pale and trembling, an inch from the wood.
The door swung inward before he could touch it.
Gael filled the doorway, silhouetted against the cool, low light of the apartment. He wasn't dressed for work; dark grey trousers, a simple black sweater pushed up to his elbows. The casualness of it was somehow more intimidating than any suit.
gaze started at Samuel’s shoes, shined that morning in a fit of nervous energy, traveled up his too-stiff trousers, over the crisp white shirt he’d changed into just before leaving, and finally settled on his face. It was a slow, comprehensive inventory. Samuel felt it like a physical touch, stripping away layers. It saw the tremor in his lower lip, the frantic pulse in his throat, the way his breath hitched and held. He felt transparent, a specimen pinned under glass.
Then those dark eyes dropped to the bag. “Put it by the door.”
The voice was calm. Flat. Completely matter-of-fact. It held none of the dark velvet texture from the car, none of the possessive bite.
“Yes, Sir,” Samuel whispered.
He bent, placing the bag neatly against the wall beside a sleek, empty console table. The bag held his toothbrush, a change of clothes, a book; tiny, desperate anchors to his other life. Letting it go was a physical surrender. He straightened, arms dangling uselessly, feeling weightless and terrifyingly exposed.
Gael turned without another word.
Samuel followed, his steps too loud on the hardwood. The apartment felt different. He’d only ever seen it through the lens of crisis: the shocked, bloody haze after the mugging, and then the charged, earth-shattering space where he had first knelt. Now, on a quiet Friday night with two entire days yawning before them, the space seemed vaster, its silence deeper, more pregnant. The wall of windows highlighted the city’s glittering grid, but inside, the light was pooled and intimate, catching the grain of wood, the sheen of steel, leaving corners in soft, suggestive shadow.
“This is the kitchen.”
Gael had stopped in the doorway, not entering. Samuel halted a pace behind, his eyes skating over the spotless black countertops, the professional stove that looked barely touched.
“You may get water or food for yourself at any time. Glasses and dishes are here.” A tap of a long finger on a cabinet handle. A dull sound.
