She glanced at the clock on her computer screen. Forty minutes. She’d only gotten in forty minutes. The word counter flashed at her, a measly thousand words. Her heart sank. Her deadline was next week and she still had the whole final act of the book to write.

Ethan was not able to pick up social cues. It was something she’d found charming when she first met him, and now...well, now she wanted to kill him. Literally break the plate in his hand across the edge of her desk and shove a shard of sharpened Limoges china deep into his neck.

He didn’t seem to notice her tight grimace, her darting eyes. He set the cup and plate on the desk and started in massaging her shoulders. “What are you doing in here, pounding away? Getting close to finishing?”

Dear God, the man was settling in to have a whole conversation.

Her therapist whispered harshly inside her brain, Sutton Montclair. Stop that. He’s lonely. Dashiell is gone. He needs the connection between you. Reestablish a connection with your husband, Sutton. You need it as much as he does. You need each other. That’s how you will survive this.

And now it’s your turn to fuck off, Doc. The only way I’m going to survive this is by meeting my deadline and making sure there’s a paycheck to feed this man in back of me.

She dredged up a smile. “Just reworking the beginning a bit. It was too slow. You know how it is.”

He didn’t. He never had to rework his beginnings. Of course, he hadn’t been working at all lately, which was the reason he was in here, pestering her. She forced herself not to glance at the clock. Every interruption cost her at least twenty minutes, and she only had four hours blocked off today; she had her quarterly lunch with her mother at one o’clock. She would cancel. Save herself the aggravation. Mail the envelope instead. Gain another couple of hours. Screw Siobhan.

“Have your tea before it gets cold,” Ethan chided.

She took an obedient sip. It was delicious, of course. The man was British, it was in his blood. He had two talents—he was brilliant in bed and brilliant at making tea. She had herself a catch, everything she’d ever wanted, and all she could think was, Please go. Please go. Please go. Just leave me alone...

Connect, damn you.

Her smile was a bit wider now, comforting, knowing. She turned in her chair, put her hand on his. “Ethan. Darling. Are you going to get back to work on the book soon?”

His face closed. His arms crossed. A complete body language shift. His lower lip practically jutted out. He was pouting. Ethan could pout with the best of them.

“Don’t start in on me, Sutton. I was only trying to be nice.”