“I was.” I bit the side of my cheek. “But last night I had no idea you were trying to steal the company I work for.”

Abruptly, the temperature in the room dropped. Tension pulled, instantly hostile.

Eli’s jaw twitched, and he took a step forward. His expression was outwardly amused, but his muscles were taut. “Steal the company.” He nodded, making a show of considering my words. “That’s a big accusation.”

“If the shoe fits.”

“Remarkably poor fit for a shoe.” He held my eyes. “Did Harkness barge in wearing ski masks? Because that is what thieves do.”

I didn’t reply.

“Did we take the property of someone else without offering compensation? Did we obtain something through subterfuge?” He shrugged. With ease. “I don’t think so. But if you suspect foul play, by all means. There are several authorities to which you can report us.”

I thought of myself as a rational person, and rationally I knew that he was right. And yet, Eli being part of Harkness felt like a personal betrayal. Even though we’d barely spent an hour together. Maybe the problem was that I’d shared about Vince with Eli, shared more than I should because . . . because I’d liked him. I’d liked Eli, and that was the crux of it. Now that I’d finally admitted it to myself, I could let go of it. Of him.

How liberating.

“We didn’t steal anything, Rue,” he told me, voice low. “What we did was buy a loan. And what we’re doing is making sure that our investment pays off. That’s it.”

“I see. And tell me, is it normal for the highest-ranking members of a private equity firm to be on-site interviewing employees?”

His mouth twitched. “Are you an expert on financial law, Dr. Siebert?”

“It seems like you already know the answer to that.”

“As do you.”

We regarded each other in silence. When I couldn’t bear it any longer, I nodded once, silent, and turned around so that—

His hand closed around my wrist, and I hated, hated the scorch of electricity that traveled up my nerve endings at the contact. Even more, I hated how he instantly let go, as if he, too, had been burned.

What I felt was bad enough. The thought of Eli experiencing the same was a recipe for disaster.

“Rue. We should talk,” he said earnestly, any pretense or hostility dropped. His fingers returned to my wrist. “Not here.”

“Talk about what?”

“About what happened last night.”

“We didn’t even hold hands. Not much to discuss.”

“Come on, Rue, you know that we—”

“Eli?”

We both turned. Conor Harkness was leaning in, palms against the doorframe, watching us with the air of a shark who could smell blood from miles away. His gaze focused on our closeness, on the way Eli’s eyes seemed unable to let go of me, on his hand, still circling my wrist.

“A moment,” Eli said.

“I need you in the—”

“A moment,” he repeated, impatient, and after another raised eyebrow and infinitesimal hesitation, Conor Harkness was gone, and I remembered myself.

I stepped back from Eli, taking in the strong set of his brow, his beautiful blue eyes, the tension in his jaw. Someone had to put an end to this. Me—I had to put an end to this, because he clearly would not. “Goodbye, Eli.”

“Rue, wait. Can we—”

“My number.” At the door, I spun on my heels. “Do you still have it?”

He nodded. Eagerly. Hopeful.

“It might be better if you got rid of it.”

Eli dipped his head and let out a silent exhaled laugh. I left the room, not quite sure where his disappointment ended and mine began.

6

A SHORTCUT HIS BRAIN DID NOT NEED

ELI

After the scene Hark had witnessed earlier today, it was no surprise that the first thing he asked when Eli let himself inside Hark’s Old Enfield home was: “What the fuck is up with the girl?”

“Woman,” Minami corrected him distractedly. She was on Hark’s couch, feet in Sul’s lap, frantically pressing buttons on the PlayStation controller. Eli checked the screen, wondering whom she was shooting dead.

Bafflingly, the game appeared to be about cake decorating.

“Right. Sure.” Hark rolled his eyes. “What the fuck is up with the woman?”

Eli ducked into the kitchen, which was spotless in a way only never-been-used steel surfaces could manage. He helped himself to a bottle of Hark’s imported beer and returned to the living room. “Just checking: If my answer were to be ‘What woman?’ then . . .”

“I would lose all my respect for you.”

“I think I can handle that.” He sat next to Hark with a grin. This was their routine when they all happened to be in Austin—increasingly less common as Harkness expanded. Minami and Sul on one half of the sectional, being disgustingly in love, and Eli and Hark on the other, being . . . Disgustingly in love in your own manly, grunting way, Minami had once said. She was probably right.

“Her name is Dr. Rue Siebert,” Sul volunteered.

Eli lifted an eyebrow. “Dude, you have a budget of fifty words per day, and you use six of them to give me shit?”

Sul smiled, pleased with a job well done, and went back to massaging Minami’s feet like the whipped traitor he was.

“What’s up with Rue Siebert, Eli?” Hark asked, with the tone of someone who wanted an answer ten minutes ago. Eli saw no particular reason not to give him one.

“We matched online. An app. And met up last night.”

Minami paused her game so forcefully, her thumb might need X-rays. “To . . . ?”

“Fuck.”

“Actually, I knew that. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

“Jesus, Eli. You rode her?” Hark asked, and Minami laughed.

“Good to see that after fifteen years in the US, Hark is still a living, breathing Irishism.”

“Shut your bake, Minami.”

Eli bit back a smile. “No one rode anyone, because she was having a rough night. But.”

I wanted to.

I’ve been thinking about her nonstop for the past twenty-four hours.

I’ve been distracted, irritable, and horny, and I wanted to text her first thing in the morning. I decided it was best to wait since her phone looked busted and she might need to get another, and fuck, I shouldn’t have hesitated.

Eli couldn’t remember ever overthinking an interaction with a woman this much. And he’d been engaged.

“But?”

“No buts, actually. She’s pissed because she thinks we’re trying to take over Kline.”

Minami gasped and clutched her throat. “Us? No way.”

This time Eli couldn’t hide his smile. Until Hark asked pointedly, “Is she going to be a distraction?”

“I don’t know.” Eli leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and stared at Hark with a hint of a challenge. “Do I ever get distracted, Hark?”

Hark’s gaze narrowed. Thick, fat tension rose between the two of them—and then everyone burst into laughter. Even Sul’s shoulders shook silently.

“I just remembered!” Minami clapped her hands. “That one time Eli fell asleep while riding his bike?”

“And the Semper deal?” Hark spoke as if Eli wasn’t there. “He got so sucked up in it that he forgot to pick up Maya from overnight camp—way to traumatize her, asshole.”

“The bike thing was at three a.m., after a forty-eight-hour experiment, and we all know that ninety percent of Maya’s trauma was already there.” He took another swig of his beer. Then, zeroing in on Minami, he drawled, “Also, if we want to talk about unfortunate driving mishaps, let’s discuss that Missouri fair where you got a DUI on the bumper car rink.”

“It was thrown out in court!”

“Or”—he pointed his finger at Hark—“that time someone sent the entire Harkness mailing list a message about pubic liability insurance.”