CHAPTER 5: WE NEED TO TALK

"Not here," I said.

The words came out thin and fast. Behind him, the last stragglers from the meeting were filing toward the elevators, and I could feel eyes sliding over us. A CEO and a nobody in a doorway. Nothing suspicious about that.

"Agreed." Henry's expression didn't shift. "My office."

"You have an office already?"

"I've had a desk for four hours."

That wasn't an answer. He turned and walked, and I stood there like an idiot until my feet moved on their own. Two doors down, he pushed open a glass door with the previous CEO's nameplate still bolted beside it. Half unpacked boxes lined the wall. A single lamp glowed on the desk.

He closed the door. The click made my shoulders jump.

"Sit."

"I'll stand."

"Roseline."

"Ms. Carter," I said. "You called me that out there."

A muscle ticked in his jaw. He set his folio on the desk, slowly, the way you set down something that might go off. "Fine. Ms. Carter. About this morning."

"Which part? The part where you left me in your hotel room, or the part where you called it only one night?"

"I didn't leave you. You left."

"You said it."

"I know I said it." He dragged a hand through his hair, and for a second the polished CEO cracked. "I've been replaying it since you walked out. I thought you were having regrets. I didn't know..."

"Stop."

"I'm trying to apologize."

"Don't." My nails bit into my palms. "Please. I don't want the apology. I don't want the explanation. I just want it gone."

"Gone."

"Erased. Deleted. Like it never happened."

He stared at me. The lamplight caught the tiredness in his face, the faint shadows I'd noticed in the bar. He looked like a man who hadn't slept either.

"That's not how it works," he said quietly.

"It's exactly how it works if we both agree."

"You're shaking."

"Don't tell me what I'm doing."

"I'm not trying to..." He exhaled through his nose, stopped, started over. "Look. I wasn't expecting to see you this morning. I'd have handled it better if I had."

"Handled, what better? Pretending? You were very convincing."

"Was I supposed to announce it to the room?"

"No!" It burst out louder than I meant. I lowered my voice, fast. "No. I'm glad you didn't. I just..."

I trailed off. I didn't know how to finish that sentence.

"You could have said something," I muttered. "Before I walked in there and made an idiot of myself."

"By doing what? Texting a stranger?" His brow lifted. "I didn't have your name. Or your number. You made sure of that."

"That was the point."

"I know." He said it so simply that it stung. "I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying neither of us got a warning."

I pressed my lips together. A bitter laugh scraped up my throat, and I swallowed it. Outside the glass, a man in a gray suit slowed to peer in, then hurried on when Henry's eyes cut toward him. The blinds didn't move. I noticed I was counting my breaths.

Silence pressed in around us. Somewhere down the hall, a phone rang and rang.

Then he said, very carefully, "Eric Kingsley is your ex, isn't he?"

The floor tilted again.

My heart stuttered. For a long second I forgot how to make my mouth work. He'd said it like a fact. Not a guess.

"How..." My voice caught. "How do you know that?"

"I didn't. Not for sure." His eyes never left my face. "My father mentioned Eric's girlfriend on the phone. Two years. Roseline. Then I watched you flinch when the room said Kingsley." A small pause. "And you didn't flinch like a woman who's still in love."

I couldn't breathe right.

He'd read all of that. In one look, across a conference room. And I'd thought I was hiding it.

"I know he's your brother," I said stiffly. "I heard the whispers."

"Half brother."

"That's what they said."

"That's what everyone says." Something flat and strange crossed his face. "I'm just telling you so you can hear it from me. He's my half brother, and I'll be seeing him a lot. Which means you'll be seeing me, and I'd like to know exactly what I walked into."

Heat rushed up my face until it hurt. My eyes stung. Not from sadness. From the sheer, blistering humiliation of it.

Last night, I spilled everything to a stranger. Two years of waiting. The ring. The betrayal. And that stranger was Eric's brother, sitting behind his brother's old desk, calmly connecting the dots I'd handed him.

I'd slept with the one man in New York I should never have touched.

"So that's what this is," I said, hollow. "You want to know if I did it on purpose."

"What? No."

"Because I didn't know. I swear I didn't."

"I know you didn't." His voice softened. "I didn't either."

"Then why bring him up?"

"Because he's going to find out."

"He won't."

"Roseline."

"He won't," I said, fiercer. "Because you won't tell him. And neither will I."

The room went quiet again.

I made myself look at him. Really look, chin lifted, hands fisted at my sides so he wouldn't see them tremble.

"Here's how this goes," I said. "Whatever happened between us is finished. It was a mistake. It's over. It stays in that hotel room where it belongs."

His gaze tracked over my face. "Ms. Carter..."

"You are my boss. I am your employee. Nothing else. If anyone in this building learns what happened, I'll lose my job, and I'll be the girl who slept her way into the CEO's office. I won't be that girl."

"I would never..."

"Promise me."

He didn't answer right away. Something moved behind his eyes. Reluctance, maybe. Or something I couldn't name.

"Fine," he said at last. "If that's what you want."

"It's what I need."

"Then it's done."

"Say it."

His mouth tightened. "It stays out of the office. I'll never bring it up again."

I nodded. My chest felt scraped hollow.

"Good."

I turned for the door. Every step felt like wading through water. My hand closed around the handle, cold metal against damp skin.

"Roseline."

I froze. Didn't turn.

"Are you okay?" he asked. Low. No mask this time. Just a question.

My throat closed.

"I'm fine, Mr. Kingsley." My voice barely held. "Thank you for asking."

I pulled the door open and walked out.

The hallway swam. I blinked hard, focused on the carpet, the water cooler, the flickering exit sign at the end. Anything to keep from crying. Don't look back. Don't look back.

I looked back.

He was standing in the doorway of his office. Not moving. Hands at his sides, jaw locked, watching me go like a man watching something he'd just signed away and already regretted.

Our eyes caught. Held.

Then my heart lurched for a different reason entirely.

Because the elevator dinged at the end of the hall, and the doors slid open, and a familiar voice rang across the floor.

"Rose!"

My blood turned to ice.

Eric strode out, sunglasses pushed up in his hair, grinning like he owned the place.