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I slumped in my desk chair, clicking my monitor to life.

I started working at Sun Steer Technologies almost five months ago, needing a change. Packing my life up in London and moving to Orange County, California. There were perks of doing this, of course. Being closer to my cousin and childhood best friend, Mary Jiang. Living in a place where the weather was nearly perfect at all times. The thrill of starting over in someplace new.

The fact that my one-night stand was the Director of HR was just a small con, a teeny-tiny awkwardness to my day.

We never spoke about it.

Even when I showed up at the office to interview for a new position the night after she made me see gods, I saw in real time how she threw her professional mask in place.

The message was clear; never speak of that night again.

So, I haven’t.

Though I was confident she thought about it as often as I did.

Because, as Americans say, Jacqueline Williams was constantly on my ass.

As soon as I spoke out of turn, or made an inappropriate joke, Jacqueline was there to scold me. Even if I was in a conference room speaking to my team, she would go out of her way to shake her head at me through the glass wall and glare.

I hadn’t seen Jacqueline behave so strictly to anyone else in the office.

It felt personal.

Thankfully, everyone else seemed to accept me into the fold. I established a good relationship with my team early on, making them feel comfortable approaching me with questions or concerns regardless of how busy I was. I never wanted to seem too superior to anyone else. I wanted to be one of the guys, so to speak.

Jacqueline was the very last person at Sun Steer I needed to win over, and I was confident that as soon as I did that, my daily stress levels would be reduced.

I wouldn’t feel the need to look over my shoulder every time I threw the word “cunt” around, because apparently, that word was severely more offensive here than in London.

I wouldn’t feel the need to grab anything—literally anything—to keep my hands busy whenever she stood in my presence.

Maybe we could even be friends and socialize with the others after work.

Even if I was sure I would never be able to get the expression she made when she clenched around my fingers out of my mind.

I was such a prick.

That problem of mine was probably the exact reason why it was important for Jacqueline and me to keep our distance from each other. For her to throw up this prickly wall between the two of us. She was a gorgeous woman, probably used to men not taking the hint.

I didn’t want to be that kind of man.

The kind of man who couldn’t be professional after knowing how it felt to be intimate with her.

The kind of man who felt entitled to her smiles or flirting simply because she had consented to intimacy with me the one single time.

The kind of man who constantly got a hard-on any time she bent in one of those torturous fucking pencil skirts.

No, I knew I wanted to be better. That I was capable of being responsible and mature. Safe. I never wanted her to feel unsafe because of what she shared with me. I understood that certain things she consented to with me had been immediately revoked as soon as we shook hands and pretended that we were meeting for the first time during my interview with her and Signe.

I wasn’t expecting to feel personally targeted by her wrath as often as I was, but I desperately tried to cut her some slack.

I was a man.

She was a woman.

Things were different for us.

Things weren’t as safe for her as they would be for me.