Page 38 of Dial F for Finance

I tilt her chin up, thumb streaking under her jaw, and bring my forehead to hers. The bathroom is so silent, my own breathing sounds criminal. Her lashes flutter, refusing me at first, then lifting in stages until I see her eyes, wide and shining.

“I know you like to tell yourself this isn’t real,” I murmur. “You get nervous when feelings get involved. I think you like the idea of us hidden in the dark instead of out here, in the daylight, when it’s real and there’s nowhere to run.”

She lets out a sound, half a sigh, half a laugh. “There’s always somewhere to run.”

“Maybe for you.” I stroke her cheek, gentle now, the way you’d touch an injured animal who might break for the window. “But I’m not letting you sabotage this just because you’re scared.” I kiss her, slow and careful, all the menace out of me for a second.

“I’m not scared. I’m realistic. You and I are⁠—”

I stop her protest with another kiss.

The real Jen comes out in pieces. Half-asleep. Off guard. I met her in Tokyo, after midnight, when she forgot to sharpen every word before it left her mouth. She let me see her then, and every morning she tried to take it back, act like it never happened.

But I remember.

I remember all of it.

“I’ll call you later,” I murmur, pressing a kiss against her forehead and stepping back to reach for the door. “Answer this time.”

She nods, and it takes everything in me to turn, unlock that door and walk out of it.

Mercer Capital’s executive floor hums like a living thing the moment I step into the corridor. Phones. Low voices. Keyboards. The sound of money being moved by people pretending spreadsheets are not a form of blood sport. I straighten my jacket, roll my shoulders once, and head back toward conference room three, hoping my erection is as contained as I think it is.

At the conference room door, I pause, get my breathing under control, and step in, already talking. “Sorry. Phone call.”

Bennett’s at the head of the table. Caleb’s got his feet up on the chair beside him. Logan’s in the corner with his laptop open, energy drink beside him, which means he’s either solving something or waiting to.

All three of them look up when I come in.

All three of them go silent.

“What?” I say.

Caleb’s mouth twitches. “Nothing.” He laces his hands behind his head. “Just. That must’ve been some call.”

“Whatever, man.”

I have no idea what he’s enjoying and I hate it. I pull out a chair. “Can we please just⁠—”

“Dominic.” Logan pushes his glasses up his nose as he watches me over his laptop screen. “Your mouth.”

“What about it.”

“The color. Dark plum, matte.” He says it like he’s reading it off a spec sheet. “It’s the one Jenna wears. And your hair . . . It’s what Audrey likes to call the ‘just fucked’ style.”

Crap.

I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth. It comes away streaked with a color I’d recognize in the dark, on the moon, at the bottom of the sea. I drag my fingers through my hair.

Too late. Obviously too late. These men have known me since college, and every one of them can do arithmetic.

Bennett leans back, laces his fingers over his stomach, and regards me with the serene satisfaction of a man watching a rival fumble a merger he warned him about. “So,” he drags out the sound, “I take it Tokyo went well after all.”

Every stupid, dangerous, beautiful memory of Tokyo lights up at once.

“I need all of you to leave Tokyo alone.”

Caleb barks a laugh. “Not a chance.”