“Babies are so helpless.” Dorsey sighed. “You know they’re all just one poor decision away from being left on those same church steps.”

Liza spun to look up at him, ready to tell him she had thought the same thing. Or maybe ask him about his own adoption. Had he been left at his mother’s door? But she had underestimated how close he stood behind her. The wide collar of her shirt had gotten caught on the jagged metal clip of his suspenders, and her cheap snaps gave up the fight. Her fitted flannel shirt unsnapped nearly down to the navel, exposing the tops of her breasts as they fought with the old, too-tight bra. The cheapness of the bra and the holes in the lace and her view of his Ferragamo shoes irrationally made Liza want to cry. From this day forward, no skimping on underthings. She took a deep breath and heard a sharp exhale in response as her breasts brushed against his chest. Dorsey tried to turn around, but her shirt was still stuck to his suspenders and Liza lurched after him. He reached for the fraying collar but thought better of it and held his hands high.

“Don’t breathe.” He growled. Liza held her breath without question and attempted to pull her shirt out of the metal clip of his suspenders. Why would a man this rich wear suspenders this raggedy? Something about her jarring movements angered Dorsey, because he steadied her shoulders and gritted his teeth like he was defusing a bomb.

“May I?” he clipped out. Liza nodded, and his enormous hands slid carefully around the collar. Liza was hyperaware of the millimeters between his knuckles and her semi-exposed breast, and she watched every micromovement. She willed her nipples to stay flat. But she could already feel gooseflesh spreading over the tops of her breasts. When she took an involuntary breath, Dorsey’s thumb trembled, and his Adam’s apple bobbed like a boiling egg.

“What on earth is going on here?” Jennifer, who had, of course, followed Dorsey down the hall, had her fists balled at her sides.

Liza heard Dorsey groan. This had all the trappings of bad werewolf porn.

• Heaving bosom of the damsel in distress
• Man inexplicably sweating in a cool office
• Ripped-open shirt
• Ripped bra

Liza took one hard yank on her shirt and pulled it loose—not without an adequate tear in the fabric, however.

“That’s what I was trying to avoid,” Dorsey said. To Liza’s surprise, Jennifer rounded on her.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Jennifer demanded.

Liza snapped her shirt closed, as mortification mixed with anger and something else, something hard to name, washed over her. She didn’t know what to feel first.