Page 29 of Dial F for Finance

This is very simple. I’m going to get out of bed, locate my underwear and possibly a shirt. Then I’m going to shower, order coffee, open the final Nakamura draft and become a person again.

When Dominic wakes up, I’ll say something crisp and adult.

Something like: Last night was unexpected, but we’re both professionals.

No.

Too HR.

Last night happened. It doesn’t need to become a thing.

Better.

Except Dominic Cruz has never met a thing he didn’t want to make larger, louder, and more aggressively lit.

I slide one leg out from under the sheet. My foot hits the carpet.

Progress.

His arm slips from my waist to the mattress, and I freeze like I’ve just tripped a silent alarm. His breathing stays deep and even.

Looking at Dominic asleep is like reading confidential materials without authorization. The man doesn’t seem built for sleep. He’s built for rooms with glass walls and hostile term sheets. For women looking twice and men deciding whether they hate him or want to be him. He’s built for expensive watches, too-wide grins, and the kind of self-possession that makes everyone else in a space become background furniture.

But asleep?

Asleep, he looks younger.

Not boyish. Dominic Cruz could be unconscious in a ditch and still look like he has excellent credit and an exit strategy. But the performance is gone. The grin is gone. The restless, glittering energy he wears like custom suiting is nowhere to be found.

One arm is thrown across the pillow where I was. His hair is a mess from my hands. There are faint red marks on his shoulder where my nails broke skin. His mouth is softer than I’ve ever seen it.

This isn’t the version of him everyone gets.

And that thought is the exact wrong thing to have while one foot is already pointed toward the exit.

I should go.

Instead, I stand there, naked in the thin wash of Tokyo light, staring at my dress on the floor while willing my dignity to do something. All I manage is failing to leave.

Where would I even go?

I lower myself onto the edge of the bed.

Dominic shifts behind me.

My spine goes rigid.

His voice comes rough and low, ruined by sleep. “Realize you couldn’t leave because this is your room?”

I close my eyes.

My hands go tight on the edge of the mattress. I manage a laugh, soft and unsteady. “I wasn’t leaving. I was⁠—”

“Panicking?”

I look over my shoulder. He’s propped on one elbow, bedsheet slung low along his hips. I scowl at him. “Were you awake that whole time?”

He grins. It’s artless, lopsided, and about six levels more naked than we are physically. “Not the whole time. Just the minute you tried to escape.”