Bartholomew

I stayed up until half past three, laptop glowing in the dark, tabs open to infrastructure financing, Voss Enterprises acquisitions, and tomorrow’s ministers. Notepad crammed with unfamiliar terms: tax holiday extensions, environmental compliance timelines.

I wasn’t going into Kai Voss’s world unprepared. Not as some decorative accessory. Not after the night he’d slid that envelope across the hotel suite table and watched me fold.

I shut the laptop and stared into the dark, pulse loud in my ears.

I arrived at his penthouse at 5:30. Instructions said six. I knew. I’d memorized them. But insomnia had me up since four, and my body moved before reason could catch up.

I rang the bell. Mistake.

The door opened.

Kai stood there, hair tousled, black robe hanging open—nothing underneath. The fabric parted just enough to reveal clean, disciplined muscle, the knot low on his hip like a deliberate taunt. My breath hitched. His chest rose and fell with calm breath.

I cataloged the doorframe, the potted plant, the wood grain under my feet—anything but him. My heart hammered anyway.

“You’re early,” he said. The words almost soft, then sharpened. “Learn to obey instructions.”

Heat flooded my face. My head dipped before I could stop it. Eyes on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Quiet. Yielding. Posture folding.

I hated it. I’d handled worse men—grabby drunks, petty managers. None had ever made me bow.

He stepped aside. I followed, eyes darting: bookshelves, coffee table, dawn light slicing through windows.

He walked to the kitchen with the ease of someone entirely unbothered by being half-undressed in front of a person he'd hired twelve hours ago. I heard water running.

"Tea?" he asked.

I blinked. "Sorry?"

"Tea." Same tone. Unhurried. Like it was a reasonable thing to ask at 5:30 in the morning while wearing almost nothing.

"Yes. Please. Thank you."

I stood in the middle of the room and tried to determine if this was actually happening. 

He asked how the drive over was. Whether I'd eaten. Black or with milk. Each question landing lightly, no agenda behind it that I could see, and that was almost more disorienting than if there had been one. 

This wasn't the man from the office. This wasn't the voice on the phone that said don't keep me waiting and meant it. This was something quieter — Kai Voss before the armor went on, moving around his kitchen in an open robe, making me tea, making small talk like we were something we absolutely were not.

I answered carefully. Watched him from the corner of my eye each time his back was turned. 

The line of his shoulders. The way the robe shifted when he reached for something. The back of his neck.

I looked away every time before it became a problem.

He handed me the tea. Our fingers didn't touch. I was almost relieved.

We sat. Or rather, he sat — settling into the armchair across from me with the particular ease of a man who owned everything in his line of sight, including, apparently, the silence. 

I wrapped both hands around the mug and looked out at the city still dark beyond his windows.

"I'll go and change," he said eventually, setting his cup down. Matter-of-fact. Like he was telling me the weather.

He stood and crossed the room without another word, the robe shifting at his back as he disappeared down the hallway. I heard a door close somewhere deeper in the penthouse, quiet and unhurried.

I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding.

The living room settled around me. I set my mug down, stood, and started moving — slow circuits around the perimeter, eyes tracing the spines on his shelves. Dense titles. Infrastructure law. Development economics. Something in three languages I couldn't read. I pulled one out without thinking, a thick volume on international trade policy, and had read four pages before I fully registered I was doing it.

I was still reading when I heard the hallway door open again.

I looked up.

And immediately forgot what words were.

He'd put the armor on. That was the only way to describe it. The white suit sat on him like it had been built for the specific purpose of making other men feel underdressed and slightly ashamed of themselves. 

His hair was set, the earlier disorder completely erased, every line of him deliberate. 

He looked, infuriatingly, like exactly what he was.

His eyes went to the book in my hands.

I snapped it shut. The sound echoed off the marble.

One corner of his mouth moved — not quite a smile.

"We should get going," he said.

I shoved the book onto the nearest shelf, probably in the wrong place, and didn't care. "Right. Yes."

He turned toward the private elevator without waiting. I followed, clutching the slim leather folio Zegler had handed me yesterday like a lifeline. My new shoes — shiny, black, painfully corporate — clicked too loudly against the floor with every step.

The elevator doors slid shut with a soft hiss. 

We stood side by side, close enough that I could catch his cologne — something metallic and precise. The same scent that had clung to my skin two nights ago when I'd left his hotel suite with a fat envelope and shaking legs. Now it made my stomach turn in ways I refused to name.

I kept my eyes on the glowing floor numbers ticking down.

He didn't speak. Neither did I.

When the doors opened to the underground garage, Zegler was already waiting beside the sleek black Maybach, rear door open. Kai slid inside without a word. I hesitated half a second — long enough for him to glance back with faint impatience — then ducked in after him.

The leather was cool against the backs of my thighs. I sat as far from him as the backseat allowed and clutched the folio to my chest like armor.

"State-Fund Tower," Kai said to Zegler. "ETA?"

"Twenty-three minutes, sir, barring traffic."

A single nod. Then he pulled out his phone and began scrolling. The blue light carved sharp angles across his jaw. He looked untouchable. Regal. Nothing like the man who'd pinned me to silk sheets and growled promises against my throat.

I swallowed, opened the folio, pretending to review notes I’d already memorized. Ministry of Finance. PPP amendments. Tax restructuring. I’d burned my eyes highlighting keywords, determined to prove I was more than some bar boy he enjoyed seeing on His knees.

The car glided through waking streets. Dawn gold streaked Kai’s profile. I stole a glance—couldn’t help it.

He looked up. Caught me.

Eyes locked.

"Read me the first three agenda items," he said. "Word for word."

I straightened. Cleared my throat. Began.

"Item one: Amendment to Section 4.2 of the draft Infrastructure Acceleration Bill — proposed extension of tax holidays from seven to twelve years for qualifying green-energy projects. Item two: Revisions to environmental impact assessment protocols, specifically streamlining approval timelines for projects exceeding—"

I kept going. Voice steadier with every sentence. When I finished the third point I risked another look.

He was watching me. Not his phone. Me.

One corner of his mouth lifted. Just barely.

"Not bad, Bartholomew."

My name in his mouth felt filthy. Intimate. Wrong.

“Thank you, sir.”

He leaned back, eyes never leaving my face.

“We’ll see how you perform when the room wants to tear me apart.” A beat. “And how well you keep that mouth shut when they try.”

The words sank low, heavy.

“Yes, sir.” it was the only response my mind could form.

The car slowed near State-Fund Tower’s glass facade. VIP entrance. Zegler eased to a stop.

But before the door opened, Kai shifted.

He leaned across the seat—slow, deliberate—until his face was inches from mine. Breath warm against my cheek. Close enough I could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the dark flecks in his eyes.

I froze. Heat roared up my neck, into my face, ears burning crimson. Lips parted on instinct. I waited—breath shallow—for the kiss I was suddenly desperate for.

His gaze dropped to my mouth.

Then one corner lifted in a slow, knowing smirk.

He pulled back.

The door opened.

“After you, Bartholomew.”

I stumbled out on shaking legs, face still flaming, the almost-kiss ringing in my blood like a promise—or a threat.

He stepped out behind me, cool and composed, as if nothing had happened.

But I knew better.

The game had just begun.