When Galen spots my eye roll, I brace for another terse comment. But he sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. “Fuck, this mess is bringing out the worst in me. No, obviously I wouldn’t do that; obviously you can go to those interviews. Alright? I’m not a damn ogre. Please, Kara, have mercy on me.”

And those last words are so desperate, I can’t resist looking up.

Ice blue eyes bore into me, and I’m falling into their depths. I’m falling, twisting, soaring, trapped in the zero-gravity of my boss’s gaze.

He takes a step closer. “I’ve handled everything poorly.”

Huh. Those words aren’t easy for a man like Galen Onasis to say. He’s built an empire after all, crafted a huge company from the ground up. Every word he speaks comes with the ultimate authority.

I wet my lips. “Okay.”

“I should never have stayed away from you like that. Should never have put that fucking distance between us.” Galen’s pacing back and forth in front of my desk, raking a hand through his brown and silver hair. And now that I’ve seen him in an endless array of strange clothes, I can confirm: the silk waistcoat and shirtsleeves combo really works for him. It really works.

Not that it matters.

“So why did you stay away?”

I mean, I know why: because I made things weird. Baked those stupid muffins for my boss and asked personal questions like a fool. Practically melted against him like a groupie at the first touch. But I want to hear him say it, so I’m inoculated against ever doing something so dumb again.

“I didn’t trust myself,” Galen rasps. “I didn’t trust myself with you.”

Silence rings through our olive tree grove, the leaves cast in shadow by the mist outside.

Um. What? But Galen’s standing still now, gazing down at me with so much emotion churning in his eyes, and he’s not done.

“If I spent one more hour alone in this office with you, Kara, I wasn’t sure what I would do.”

Oooh my gosh. My chair creaks as I cross and uncross my legs. I clear my throat, heart pounding. Is he really saying these things?

I must be reading this all wrong. Must be projecting or something, except when I turn his words over in my head, I can’t figure out any other meaning.

He wants me. Galen Onasis—the man I’ve yearned after for so long—wants me. Maybe even as badly as I want him.

Enough to crush me against his chest in that corridor. Enough to stay away for six days straight to keep from touching me again.

And we haven’t solved everything between us yet, not by a long shot, but I can’t help saying, “Well. We’re alone in this office right now.”

Galen goes still. Eerily still, like a big cat eyeing its prey. His chest doesn’t even rise and fall with his breath, and his gaze is fixed on me.

I’ve never felt this exposed before. So flayed open. Gosh, I’m warm.