Page 2 of Adversary to the Villain

Aside from working for him.

“You are nothing if not unwittingly honest, Sage,” he deadpanned.

She beamed as if he’d just said her hair was made of gold, her eyes chipped with diamonds. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

Someplace, somewhere, a pixie just lost their wings,he thought caustically.

Pinching his nose, he let out a sigh. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

Her gratitude may as well have been a boulder for the pressure that slammed into his chest. Generally, he detested any form of joy, but this was a new feeling entirely, her presence placing him in a constant state of sickness to the stomach. He wondered how kind she would think him if he likened her to food poisoning.

“Finish your work for the day, then be gone.” He dismissed her before he did something nonsensical, like comparing her effect to bad fish. Which would have been as dishonest as it was ridiculous, because the blasted woman always seemed to smell like the vanilla candies she ate daily—or, he suspected, hourly.

Turning on his heel, he banished her from his sight, hoping the two days away would at least give him time to rid his memory of this awful interaction.

But then she stood from her chair, scraping it against the stone floor as she called out to him. “Sir? Before I go…may I ask: what is the office policy on romantic fraternization?”

Never mind.

The interaction was currently burning itself into his brain.

Slowly, he turned back around. “My office,” he replied coolly. “Now.”

She scrambled to follow, traveling quickly behind him through the office door, grabbing the chair she usually occupied from its station in the corner—the same chair that had become the heart of their daily unspoken war. The first battle cry had been him shoving her seat as far from his desk as he was able, followed by her fully disregarding that action and moving it closer.

Since then, it had become a ritual of sorts between them, and despite his annoyance, he never told her to stop. Merely watched, his face impassive, not assisting when the chair inevitably got caught on the uneven tile on the floor—instead finding sick amusement in her stumbling to right the chair, relishing her adorable little frown at the furniture’s betrayal.

He should get the floor tile fixed.

He wouldn’t.

But he probably should.

When she sat, he moved slowly to take his own chair. Her nervousness was palpable. He attempted to enjoy it. “Why,” he drawled, his hands folded atop his sleek black desk, pushing his shoulders back, “pray tell, are you asking me about office fraternization?”

She didn’t appear to be cowed, but then again, she never had been any time he’d made the attempt. It was a wonder why he kept doing it when it was growing clear that she enjoyed it. It was another wonder why in the deadlands he cared if she wanted tofraternizewith coworkers.

Romantically.

Not sensing his churning anger, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, rolling her lips inward and fidgeting with her hands. “One of the men in accounting insinuated he would be…um…agreeable to furthering our acquaintance outside of a work setting this week’s end. I told him I had to see if it would break any rules.”

Indeed, there would besomethingbreaking, but it would likely be the body of whichever bloody math nerd had asked her in the first place.

This was a place of business. Not a matchmaking service.

Kingsley hopped atop the desk, holding up a sign as if he’d been able to read Trystan’s thoughts.

Yikes

Trystan grabbed the sign and unceremoniously flung the thing out the open window.

Sage blinked at him, then smiled down at Kingsley, who nuzzled himself into her palm.

“What do you mean by ‘furthering your acquaintance’?” he asked, expressionless, but underneath the surface, his heart began to pick up speed as if he were being chased—in this case, by basic human emotion.

“A date,” she explained, looking at him with the concern you’d have for an elder who kept misplacing their house keys. Sighing, she gestured down at herself. “I’ll admit, it threw me to begin with, because I assumed everyone in the office found me odd.”

“You are odd,” he responded immediately…resisting the urge to smack his forehead into the smooth wood of his desk.