“Because you don’t seem to have any other friends.” Why he always needed to poke fun would never make sense—the situation we were in didn’t need shitty jokes.

“What makes you think you’re my friend?”

The dim light made him look softer than he was. Shadows were cast in just the right places that he looked comfortable for a change. His eyes were trained on my face that made me question if I looked like a complete wreck and his thumb stroked my cheek in soft swipes. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

“Good.”

“Why’re you asking so many questions?”

Because I can’t make sense of anything around me. Because he appeared in my life out of nowhere and I couldn’t understand why. Because my brain was going in a million different directions, and I needed to be distracted.

“So, you’ll answer them. How come we were assigned together?”

“Fate, probably.” His eyes looked sleepy even though I knew he was wide awake.

“Are you taking over your company soon too?”

He sighed and kissed my forehead. “I don’t know. Sometimes he has plans that I’m not aware of and have to fly by the seat of my pants.”

“How long have you been killing people for?”

“What made you think its someone in your finance department?”

A lot of things did. The letters that were signed making her my guardian and forging my name took legal people to handle. Staging a hostile takeover would mean making deals that required money. If that was the route being taken, based on my—limited—knowledge, it would be a perfect coup set up to make a few unseen tweaks to steal it from under me.

How would she take over if I became the legal owner now, though? We needed to work quickly and have the succession begin immediately.

I sighed and leaned into him more, letting him wrap his arms around me. While it felt nice, I shouldn’t have gotten used to things like him touching or holding me. Sex wasn’t going to breach its way into my mind. “A lot of things. It made sense when I thought about it.”

“What else are you thinking about?”

“That we should keep our relationship strictly business.”

“This is considered a business conversation,” he countered, leaning into me more. He wasn’t planning on letting me go any time soon.

I had to rip the band aid off. “I don’t want a romantic relationship with you.”

“That’s too bad.”

“What about Sloane?” She was still deep in the back of my mind, her threats making me wonder how far she would go because of Brent. She threatened me twice in one night. If she knew earlier, that means her skank comment at the game was directed at me specifically.