جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 400

Joella’s POVI got back to my office and closed the door behind me.For a minute I just stood there with my back against it, my bag still on my shoulder, trying to breathe like a normal person. My lips still tingled from Callum. My thighs were still sticky from Cavern. My whole body was a mess of two different men, and I had a pile of reports waiting on my desk like none of that had happened.“Work,” I told myself. “You are at work, Joella.”I sat down, logged into my computer, and opened the first file.I read the first line three times.Then I gave up on reading it properly and just started working through the numbers one by one, slowly, the way I did when my brain wouldn’t cooperate. Numbers didn’t care what I did at lunch. Numbers didn’t care that the CEO had bent me over his desk a few hours ago. Numbers were safe.Mostly.Every time I shifted in my chair, I felt it. The soreness between my legs. The reminder of what Cavern had done to me on that desk. Don’t clean up too much, he

Joella’s POVShe screamed my name so loud I had to pull the phone away from my ear. I was laughing already.“Oh my God,” I said. “Hi! Hi! I missed you so much!”“I missed you more. Don’t argue.”“I’m not arguing. I’m just saying I missed you the most.”“That’s arguing!”We both laughed. God, I had missed her laugh. Brie had the kind of laugh that filled a room. Loud and a little snorty at the end, which she hated and I loved.Brie and I had been close since college. Freshman year. We got assigned to the same group project in some boring economics class and she rolled her eyes at the professor at the exact same time I did, and that was it. Best friends. We did everything together. Late night study sessions. Cheap wine in her dorm. Crying over boys on her floor at three in the morning. She was the one who taught me how to do a proper winged liner. I was the one who helped her pass statistics.She was always the fashionable one. The one with big dreams. She wanted to work for a magazine,

Joella’s POVHe led us through the lobby and into the elevator. Nobody spoke on the way up. The man kept smiling at Cavern and Cavern kept not smiling back. The elevator opened onto a top floor with thick carpets and big windows, and the man walked us down a long hallway to a meeting room with glass walls.Inside, about eight people sat around a long table. All men except one older woman with silver hair. They all stopped talking when Cavern walked in. Some of them actually stood up.I watched it happen. The way the whole room shifted around him. The way they looked at him with respect. And a little bit of fear. Like he was the one who decided whether they’d have a good day or a bad one.Which, I guess, he was.The man at the head of the table stood and came over. He was older, maybe sixty, with a red face and a big gold ring on his pinky.“Mr. Kingston. Richard Harrington. It’s an honor.”“Mr. Harrington.”They shook hands. Then Cavern turned and pulled out the chair beside his. For

Joella’s POVWhy didn’t I put it on silent? Who doesn’t put their phone on silent in a business meeting? Me. Apparently me. Joella Smith, finance genius, spy failure.The man stopped talking.Silence.Then I heard his chair roll back.I didn’t wait. I declined the call, shoved the phone against my chest, turned around, and started walking away. Fast. As fast as I could without running, my heels clicking way too loud on the floor.“Hey!” His voice behind me. “Hey! Stop!”I didn’t stop.“Miss! Wait a minute!”I walked faster. Turned the corner. My heart was slamming so hard I could hear it in my ears. I saw the elevator at the end of the hallway and almost cried with relief. I hit the button. Once. Twice. Five times.Come on. Come on. Come on.Footsteps behind me. Fast. Getting closer.The doors opened.I rushed inside and slammed my hand on the close button.I saw him come around the corner just as the doors started to close. The thin man with the glasses. His face was pale and angry.

Joella’s POVThe car stopped twenty minutes later.I looked out the window and blinked.I had been expecting something fancy. White tablecloths. Waiters in black vests. Menus with no prices on them. The kind of restaurant men like Cavern took people to so they could feel small. That was what I had pictured the whole ride, while his fingers were laced through mine and his thumb kept stroking the inside of my wrist like he was counting my pulse.This was not that.We were in Queens. On a narrow street with laundry hanging from a fire escape and an old man sweeping the sidewalk in front of a bakery. In front of us was a tiny restaurant squeezed between a shoe repair shop and a nail salon. The sign above the door was faded blue and white, with a few letters missing. It said ELENI’S in big curly writing, and under it, smaller, GREEK KITCHEN.There was a cat sleeping in the front window.An actual cat.I turned to Cavern. “Is this a joke?”“No.”“You eat here?”“Every chance I get.”“Cavern