Page 37 of Baby For My Ex's Brother

Liam

The office is abattlefield, and I'm waging a silent war with my own damn desires.

Ever since we returned from our trip to Atlanta, I can barely walk through the office without thinking of her—of the way she gasped and screamed for me, of her tight pussy, of her perfect tits. Shiloh's desk is an island just outside my glass fortress, her presence both a beacon and a warning.

I haven't looked at her directly since the night that shouldn't have happened, but I feel her there, like heat from a flame I'm trying not to touch.

"Shiloh, get me the Henderson file," I bark over the speakerphone without leaving my chair, keeping my eyes glued to the computer screen.

Every time I speak to her, it's clipped and harsh; I can't afford to be soft, not after what we did, not when every glimpse of her threatens to unravel me.

I hear the shuffle of her feet, the whisper of paper as she hands over the requested file. There's no thankfulness in my grunt,no acknowledgment of her as anything more than the efficient assistant she's supposed to be. She retreats back to her post, and I force myself to focus on the numbers dancing across my monitor.

Minutes morph into hours, and the tick of the clock syncs with the thud of my heartbeat. It's relentless, this gnawing hunger, a desire to taste her again, to lose myself in the soft curves that I memorized in a single night. I grit my teeth and lean into the pain like a penance.

Then comes the knock.

Soft and hesitant.

"Come in," I call out, steeling myself against whatever fresh hell this might unleash.

The door opens, and I find Shiloh on the other side, a shadow of her usual self. Her eyes don't meet mine, fixed on some point beyond my shoulder. My hands grip the edge of the desk hard enough that I feel the wood bite into my skin. God, I want to look away, but I can't. Not now.

"What do you want?" I manage to grind out, voice rough with restraint.

The question hangs in the air between us, heavy with things unsaid, with a night that changed everything and nothing at all.

It’s been two weeks, and my need for her hasn’t lessened even a little bit.

She just stands there, not moving, not speaking. Her eyes are red, cheeks blotchy from tears that have clearly left their trails. My chest tightens; it's a sucker punch to the part of me I keep locked down.

“I… I can go,” she finally says, her voice barely a whisper.

I shake my head and grit my teeth.

"Sit," I say. It's not a request. Shiloh hesitates, her warm brown eyes still fixed on some distant point before she moves slowly to the chair in front of my desk.

"What do you need?" I ask, trying to sound indifferent but unable to hide the raw edge of my words. I'm not good at this, at caring, but damn it if I don't find myself doing just that.

"Am I going to be fired?" Her voice is direct, cutting through the bullshit, hitting me square in the gut.

The question hangs there, suspended in the stagnant air of my office. The silence stretches, and I know what I should do, what any cutthroat billionaire boss would do—squash the concern, maintain the distance.

But I can't. Not with her looking like her world's about to crumble.

"Shiloh..." The name feels different on my tongue, heavy with things I won't allow myself to feel. "No, you're not being fired."

"Are you sure?" Her voice breaks, and it sounds like honesty, like fear.

"Damn sure." I lean back, my chair creaking under the shift of weight, but my eyes never leave hers. “Why the hell would I fire you? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

"I don’t know. I just… you’ve been grumpy, and I got scared because I need this job," she blurts out, the words tumbling over each other in a rush. Her hands are clasped together tightly in her lap, knuckles white. "I have to pay off my student loans, and I'm trying to save for a down payment on my own place."

"Your own place?" I probe, though it's none of my damn business.

"Yeah, I've been planning to move out of Chris's apartment," she says. “I just needed to—”

"Wait, you're still living with Chris?" My voice is sharper than I intend, the edge of concern cutting through the professional facade I've been clinging to.

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