Kate ignored me and pressed the button for our floor. The doors started to close.

Shit. I jumped to put my hand between the doors and they popped back open. “You’ll have to excuse me,” I said as I ducked into the elevator with Kate.

Kate hit the button to close the door. Hailey was frowning, her lower lip sticking out in a pout. I gave her a nod, hoping she didn’t tattle to her dad that the CFO of King Oil had ditched his baby girl mid-conversation. Gregory Mertens was the kind of guy who’d hold that against the whole company.

The doors closed us in. “Kate—”

She shook her head. “No.” She stuck a finger toward the door. “That’s exactly what I was talking about. Women like that corner you about ‘business’ ”—she used air quotes—“and you think I should hang out in your shadow and be okay with it.”

“It was business, Kate. You heard who her dad is.”

Kate stepped close to me, four years of anger radiating from her blazing eyes. “Hailey doesn’t give a shit about oil. She doesn’t give one flying rat’s ass about the wind-versus-oil debate. And I doubt she has half a fuck to give about her dad’s company as long as he keeps giving her large sums of money for Christmas. Librarians aren’t always pillars of morality, Aiden. Sometimes they’re douchebags. Hailey likes the power she gets from making supposedly good men stray from their partners. That’s what she lives for at these conferences.”

I recoiled. “I wasn’t going to do anything but talk shop. I didn’t want to do even that.”

“Then don’t.” Her voice cracked like a whip. The elevator lurched to a stop. We were at our floor.

I kept pace with Kate as she stomped to our room. I kept my voice to a hiss. “She’s exactly the type of person who’ll gladly wield bad PR against those guys who don’t stray from their wives. Her dad’s worse. Balancing that is just another game in business.”

Kate lifted a shoulder. “If you want to play that game, go ahead. I’m done with it.”

She stopped at our room and swiped her card, then slammed the door open and stormed in.

I stepped in and let the door slam shut behind me. I’d never seen her this pissed before. She toed off her athletic shoes and dumped her tote on the desk. Her body was tight, her movements short.

Was this how she’d felt every time I talked to another woman?

You think I should hang out in your shadow and be okay with it.

No, it wasn’t talking to women. It was ignoring my wife while I did it.