Page 50 of Hate Notes

"I'm sure she has." There was something knowing in his tone that I didn't like. "She has a way of... getting close to people. Wouldn't you agree?"

Every muscle in my body tensed. "Is there something specific you'd like to say?"

"Not at all." He raised his glass in a mock toast. "To new beginnings. And old endings."

As he walked away with the young woman, Remmy let out a low whistle. "Well, he's creepy. Did you see how he was looking at Ember?"

I had. And I didn't like it one bit.

"Excuse me," I said, already moving across the room.

I found Ember just as she was finishing up with the investors. She'd managed to make the notoriously stuffy Harrison brothers actually laugh—something I hadn't seen in ten years of knowing them.

She turned to me with a smile that made my chest ache. "Mr. Foster," she said, voice professional but eyes dancing. "Enjoying the party?"

"Walk with me?" I asked quietly.

She followed me out onto the terrace, where the city lights sparkled below us like fallen stars. The night was chilly, and Ember shivered slightly as we leaned against the railing.

Without thinking, I shrugged off my jacket and draped it over her shoulders. She looked up at me with mingling surprise and something else I couldn't quite read. My jacket was too big on her, making her look small and somehow vulnerable. The sight did something strange to my heart.

"I saw Cole talking to you," she said suddenly. "Did he... say anything?"

"Just the usual posturing." I studied her face in the dim light. There was tension in her shoulders that hadn't been there before. "Is there something I should know?"

She bit her lip, and for a moment I thought she might tell me something important. But then she forced a smile. "No, nothing. I just... I like working here. At Foster Real Estate. More than I expected to."

Something in her words brought me back to our “work dinner.” I was reminded of the moment I nearly admitted to her that the goal was to inherit Davenport’s factories when he died and likely tear them down to build something new, no matter what we promised or agreed to do while he was alive.

I knew Ember would hate me if she knew the truth, and I had been too much of a coward to come clean.

“But?” I prompted.

"But nothing." She pulled my jacket tighter around her shoulders. "I'm just not used to good things lasting, I guess."

The vulnerability in her voice made me want to pull her close, consequences be damned. Instead, I gripped the terrace railing, remembering all the reasons I couldn't—shouldn't—complicate this further. She was my employee. The company had to come first. It always had.

"Ember—"

"Don't," she said softly. "Please don't say whatever you're about to say. Can we just... stay here for a minute? Just like this?"

I nodded, and we stood in silence, watching the city below. She was close enough that I could smell her perfume, feel the warmth of her beside me. Everything in me wanted to turn her around, press her against the railing, and kiss her until we both forgot why we shouldn't.

But she was right. Some things were better left unsaid. Some lines were better left uncrossed.

Even if crossing them felt inevitable. Eventually, shewouldfind out why we were pursuing the Davenport contract. I knew the longer I waited, the worse that moment would be. And yet… it was like she said.Can we stay here for a minute. Just like this.

I knew she meant on the terrace, but I found myself wanting to stay in thismomentas well. This precarious point where neither of us had opened ourselves up emotionally, but we were taking our first, exploratory steps into something exciting and unfamiliar all the same.

"You know," she said finally, "your mom told me something interesting earlier. About how you used to organize people's garages as a kid."

I nodded. “She talks too much.”

Her smile turned softer. "You were trying to take care of them, weren't you? Even then."

Something in my chest constricted. "It's not as noble as that. I've just... always had a talent for seeing how things should fit together. Order. I find it comforting and safe, so I guess I got very good at creating it, even in the middle of chaos. Organizing garages, cleaning up inefficient business practices, putting together the correct team of employees for a task... It's all just creating order out of chaos."

"It's more than that. It's people. You act like you are allergic to them, but you understand them more than you admit."

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