“I don’t care what it sounded like,” she said, dialing into that dismissive tone her dad had used with her for her entire life that didn’t, not even a little bit, sound like it should be coming out of her mouth. “But since I’m up, we might as well work out the details for how we’re going to do this for the next month. Number one, no moving my furniture around.”

He looked around the chaos that was once her everything-in-its-place living room. “Fine.”

“And we each stick to our own space within the apartment.” She drew an invisible line in the air with her finger, dividing the room in two. That part of her apartment was his dance space and over here would be hers. “That shouldn’t be hard, since you’ll be at Beckett Cosmetics all day and I like to read in bed at night.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“What, now you’re trying to tell me I can’t read in bed?” She planted her hands on her hips and glared at Nash. There was no way, not after growing up with the book police yanking any book that even hinted of a world where people rebelled against authority. She didn’t have a lot of lines that were labeled do not cross, but that was for sure one of them. “Do you have some bullshit mansplaining spiel about shit-erature and how it gives people unrealistic expectations about life and how people should treat them?”

“I meant the me going to the office part.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and rocked back on his heels, managing to look like some kind of bashful thirst trap. “We allow our staff to work from home, if they want, from Thanksgiving to after New Year’s so everyone can have some extra downtime around the holidays. As the top three executives in the company, my cousins and I lead by example. I haven’t been in the office after turkey day in five years.”

Chelle’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

A whole month of this? There weren’t enough batteries. Her fingers were going to get whatever the knuckle version of lockjaw was.

“So you’re going to be here all the time?” she asked, pressing her hand to the base of her neck, where her pulse was going fast enough to break a land-speed record.

Nash grinned at her, showing off the double dimples of disaster for her panties. “Pretty much.”

Oh God.

This couldn’t get worse.

Beyond the epic levels of horniness he inspired, how in the hell was she supposed to get any writing done?

She had a system, a process. It involved everyone in the world leaving her the fuck alone, and it was glorious. She did foundation work in the afternoon, but the mornings were reserved for fighting magical evil, thrilling side quests, and stand-in-front-of-the-open-freezer sex scenes.