Page 156 of Their Arrangement
No greeting.
No signature.
Just him.
Wolfe.
I stared at it.
Then typed back.
I’m not trying to.
And hit send.
I didn’t breathe for five full seconds. And when I did? I smiled. Not out of pride. Not out of rebellion. Out of truth.
Because he’d seen me. Every crack. Every tremble. Every slick, red, shame-soaked piece of me. And he hadn’t turned away. He’d knelt. There was power in that. Even if it didn’t belong to me.
I looked up. His office sat dark. Still. But I didn’t need to see him anymore. Because I could feel him. He hadn’t fucked me. But now? I was marked. And I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to feel clean again.
21
BARRON
I saw them.
Not clearly. Not fully.
Just a flicker as I crossed the mezzanine and glanced down through the glass railing.
Wolfe’s door was half open. Cloe was stepping out. Her head was down, her hair hiding most of her face, but I caught the way her hand brushed his arm. A silent thank-you. A soft linger.
Wolfe said nothing. But I saw his fingers slip something into his pocket.
Black. Small. Familiar.
The pouch.
He always carried one. Always had. I’d seen him hand it to assistants who didn’t want to ask. Women on our floor who’d been caught off guard. He never spoke about it, never acknowledged it. Just offered it with a kind of brutal efficiency that made me want to tear his face off.
And now he’d handed it to her.
Her walk was slower than usual. Not weak. Just… restrained. Careful. Her arms crossed slightly under her chest, as if she was holding herself together from the inside.
I watched her adjust her blouse at the hem. Tug it down like it didn’t sit right. Like something underneath had shifted.
Something had.
The ache between her legs? I knew it. Wolfe knew it. But neither of us could do anything about it now.
Except I didn’t believe that.
Not really.
Because I saw the look in her eyes when she passed my office.
The shame. The heat. The need that hadn’t been satisfied, just redirected.
