As a general rule, I didn’t like to lie to T. She was too important. But just this once, just to get her off my back, I decided to.

“I have some life shit to catch up on,” I told her. “Kitchen is bare, personal care items are all but empty, dry cleaning needs to be picked up…”

Hell, none of that was actually a lie. My kitchen was bare. But it almost always was. My items were all on their last drops, but I had that on auto-ship. And my dry cleaning, well, that was a never-ending errand.

“And I missed the gym this morning.”

“You missed the gym?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s like me saying I missed brushing my teeth. You never miss the gym.”

“I overslept.”

Her eyes were slits at this point.

“There’s something here you’re not telling me.”

Yeah. The sweaty, vivid dreams that I hadn’t wanted to wake up from. Featuring a short, stubborn, responsive Saff.

“I was up late last night. It happens. Nothing’s wrong. I’m not dying. I just know things are about to go into overdrive with this project, and I want to get ahead of the life shit beforehand.”

“So, what I’m hearing is I should tell my Marty to really memorize my face because he’s not gonna be seeing me for a while. Alright. Fine,” she said, going back behind her desk. “But don’t think you’re fooling me. I know there’s something going on. Just remember—I always find out. I am a find-out-ologist. I have a degree in find-out-ology.”

The woman knew what condoms I bought. There were no secrets that I could keep for long.

I just hoped I got a chance to enjoy Saff before Teresa got on my ass about what a terrible idea it was.

“Got it,” I said, making my way toward the elevator.

I thought I was in the clear.

But just as the doors slid open, Teresa’s voice carried over to me.

“She’s real pretty, Mr. Vale,” she said. “But is she worth risking your whole empire for?”

I walked forward like I hadn’t heard her.

As the doors slid closed, I had an unnerving thought.

She just might be.

But that was just ridiculous, so I spent the whole drive back to Brooklyn reminding myself how hard I’d worked for my company, how much I’d sacrificed, how far I’d come from the kid borrowing, conning, and stealing to try to get a future for himself.

No one and nothing was worth risking all of that.

Certainly not after a single kiss.

Even if it had been the best one of my entire goddamn life.

I almost had myself convinced that it was all in the heat of the moment, that I was romanticizing it, that it was just the music, the dance floor, the hormone-laden air.