I won’t push Kara away anymore, and I won’t tug her closer either.

I can do this. I can be the man—the boss—she deserves.

Five

Kara

The car is claustrophobic as hell. It’s so dark with the tinted windows; so small with its black leather seats. The air con is freezing, my skin goose-pimpling under my clothes, and the tinny sounds of the radio are faint through the driver’s partition.

I’ve been in this car hundreds of times, but I’ve never wanted to scream before. Funny how quickly things change.

Galen sits beside the window, his tall, muscled frame folded into the space like origami. He’s watching me, always freaking watching, those pale eyes shocking as they rove down my limbs.

Is there more silver in his hair already? How is that possible after only one week? Unless this week has sucked horribly for him too…

No. I shut that thought down before it can gain traction.

Because if Galen wanted to see me over the last six days, he could have reached out at any time. He’s my boss: I’m literally at his beck and call. The ball has been in his court, and apparently he forgot I exist.

He even requested a temp today. A temp. My hand shakes as I rub my chest.

“Heartburn?” Galen asks, and my hand drops into my lap.

“Something like that.”

His expression darkens.

Yeah, well, Galen can scowl at me all he likes, his handsome features as thunderous as the rain pounding on the roof of the car. It won’t make me confide my personal feelings, and it won’t stop me from going to those interviews on Monday.

I owe Galen Onasis precisely this and no more: a high quality of work between the hours of eight and six. No weekends; no late nights. I’m done putting my whole heart and soul into this man.

He doesn’t want them anyway. My heart. My soul.

He wants a freaking temp.

“You look ready to push me into traffic.”

This is my cue to laugh, to say something professional to smooth things over, but I can’t do it. I just can’t. So I give a jerky shrug, then stare out of the tinted glass.

I would never push Galen out of the car. Would never hurt him. But he’s right—there’s something satisfying about the fantasy right now. And lord knows I have a thousand and one fantasies about the man sitting opposite me, but this is the only one when he’s fully clothed.

“Kara.”

I’ve always loved and hated the way he says my name. Slowly, with so much care, like he’s savoring it, his voice low and rough. A bedroom voice.

Damn it.

My mind whirls through all the things I could say, the updates I could give him, but I blew through them earlier. I should have held some back, because now there’s nothing in this car except taut silence.

“Don’t go to those interviews,” Galen says.