Page 4 of Sin

The room is painfully silent now.

Mason continues, “You’re presenting sexuality like it’s something people should whisper about behind closed doors. That hesitation kills authenticity, and customers can smell inauthenticity immediately.”

Embarrassment crawls beneath my skin. I can practically feel everyone waiting to see whether I fold under the pressure. And maybe that’s exactly why my temper snaps.

“With respect we don’t sell toothbrushes.” I take one step forward. “We sell intimacy. Fantasy. Pleasure. If discussions about sex make this room uncomfortable, then we’re in the wrong business.”

Somewhere to my left, Owen chokes on absolutely nothing. Foster stares at the table like he suddenly finds the wood grain fascinating. Blaze looks seconds away from developing a stress-induced migraine. And Jenna… Jenna smiles faintly. It’s small enough most people would miss it entirely, but I catch it. It’s like she sees something in this exchange nobody else does, sending off warning bells in my head.

Mason’s gaze stays fixed on me. Unmoving. Heavy enough to pin me in place. Then, slowly, one corner of his mouth lifts.

“Well,” Owen mutters under his breath, “this is wildly inappropriate.”

That’s HR for you…

“No,” Mason says quietly, never taking his eyes off me. “She’s right.”

The tension in the room shifts instantly.

Mason glances toward the presentation screen again before saying, “Move the Lust line into the next stage of development.”

Relief hits me so fast it almost weakens my knees.

But then he adds, “With one condition.”

Of course there’s a condition.

I straighten carefully. “Which is?”

“I’ll oversee the final design process personally.”

The words land like a warning shot. My mouth parts slightly before I can stop it. Around the room, several executives look openly confused. Mason Sinclair does not involve himself in product development. Ever.

Tate narrows his eyes. “Since when do you care about packaging concepts?”

Mason ignores him completely. His attention remains locked on me. “The branding needs sharper positioning. More emotional impact. If this line is going to succeed, it needs refinement. And a lot of hard work.”

My brain immediately translates what that means. Private meetings. Late-night strategy sessions. Work trips. Hotel conference rooms. Long flights seated beside a man I already spend far too much energy trying not to think about. Bad idea after bad idea after bad idea.

Because the truly horrifying part isn’t that Mason Sinclair intimidates me. It’s that I’m attracted to him anyway.

“Do you have a problem with that arrangement, Ms. Cross?” he asks.

Every survival instinct I possess screams yes.

Instead, I hear myself say, “No, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Good.”

He pushes to his feet in one smooth motion, buttoning his suit jacket as though he didn’t just detonate the remainder of my emotional stability in front of the executive board.

“I’ll find you later so we can compare schedules.”

And then he leaves. Just like that. Jenna follows beside him, graceful and composed, though right before she steps through the conference room doors, she glances back at me. There’s something knowing in her expression. Something almost sympathetic. Which is honestly more terrifying than Mason himself.

The second the doors close behind them, the room collectively exhales.

Tate rises from his seat and claps his hands once. “Okay, folks. Great work. Everybody can get back to it.”