Page 24 of Hate Notes

I cleared my throat and adjusted my jacket. “We should get back inside. Separately,” I added.

Ember wiggled her eyes. “Okay. Do you prefer if I say ‘yes, sir’ when you give me a direct order? Or… would you prefer ‘yes, daddy’ to go with the whole ‘good girl’ thing?”

I opened my mouth to speak, closed it, and then gestured inside. “The less you speak to me, the better.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

I raised a hand to stop her. “Yes, Sir,” I corrected.

Ember shrugged. “Okay. By the way, you have a little…” she reached up and ran her thumb down the corner of my mouth. “I think I may have accidentally licked your cheek a bit when we didn’t kiss. Sorry.”

What the hell had I gotten myself into with this woman?

11

EMBER

"Let me get this straight," Kora said, stabbing her straw into her iced coffee with unnecessary violence as I walked with her toward the Northman Group building for the first time in weeks. "You kissed him. The guy you've been reading hate notes to every day. The guy who makes his employees cry. That guy?"

I winced and glanced around while we waited for the crosswalk signal to change. A few heads turned at her volume, and I gave them my best "nothing to see here" smile before leaning in. "Do you have to say it like that?"

"Am I wrong?" she asked, her eyebrow arching. Her dark curls bounced as she tilted her head, studying me with the kind of intensity that made me wish I'd kept my mouth shut.

"No," I muttered. "But you don't have to say it so... loudly."

Kora smirked and took a leisurely sip of her coffee. "Girl, you've got to explain this to me. What, did the tension just get to you? Did you endure one too many of those smoldering glares and your brain finally short-circuited? Or are you just so hornyyou've moved past reason and entered the 'fuck around and find out' phase?"

I groaned, shoulders slumping as we joined the crowd crossing the street. "It's not like that. It just happened. One second, we're arguing about his clients, and the next... I don't know. He kissed me. And I kissed him back. He looked at me, and without either of us needing to say a word, it was like we both just knew we wanted it. I've never felt that kind of connection with someone before. It was... intense."

"Oh, it was intense," Kora repeated, her voice dripping with exaggerated drama. "And then what? Did the heavens part? Did the jazz music stop? Did everyone in the room turn to watch you two make out on the balcony?"

I snorted despite myself. "No. It wasn't like that. It was private, just the two of us." I studied my feet, feeling embarrassed but still wanting to voice the truth anyway. "It was kind of magical." I looked at Kora, biting my lip. "I had a really dirty dream about him last night, too."

"Oh," Kora said, raising both eyebrows now. "So wait... How does this all compute? Cole asked you to infiltrate this guy's company and get dirt on him. Did you misunderstand and think he asked you to infiltrate Orion Foster's pants? Honest mistake. I'm sure Cole will understand."

I laughed. "All we did was kiss. Briefly. And we're good now. He saw how much of a charmer I am and offered me a job at Foster Real Estate. I'm going to be on his 'client relations' team. And I'm going to be heavily involved in some mysterious project that sounded absolutely huge."

Kora squinted. "He offered you a job? Seriously? How goodwasthat kiss?"

"Yep. And he's putting me straight on a project that sounds exactly like the kind of thing Cole wanted dirt on. If I occasionally give Cole a crumb or two, I bet I could drag this out for a long time."

"Okay, wait, wait," Kora said, holding up both hands and making us stop outside a shoe store a block from the office. "Did you start working him before or after the kiss?"

"During?" I said.

Kora blinked.

"He kind of broke the kiss off by offering me a job."

"I can't decide if that means he hated it or loved it."

"He said he couldn't kiss me anymore because he was my boss. I kind of think he was using it as an excuse so things wouldn't... go further."

"If it was up to you, would things have gone further?"

"I don't know," I said, shrugging. "He's easy on the eyes. Interesting. Competent. And?—"

"The devil's spawn," Kora cut in. "Satan in a suit. Puppy kicker. Probably a member of a cult..."

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