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Silence stretches—thick, weighted. Until he asks that question I knew was coming.

“I’m gonna ask you again, did anything happen between you two?”

My heart stops for a beat.

My grip tightens around the phone. The images flash too fast to stop: his hands gripping my hips, the sound he made when he came, the way I couldn’tbreatheafterward.

He doesn’t know I’ve already had Liam Steele inside me. Doesn’t know Ichoseit.

Even if he didn’t know who I was.

“No,” I lie. Flat. Clean. “Of course not.”

The part I can’t say—I was fine before that night.

Before him.

Before I let a stranger touch parts of me no one else ever has, not just my body—but the pieces I keep padlocked behind clinical professionalism.

Now I can’t even look at him without remembering how I came apart in his hands like I was built for it.

So, Liam Steele ruins more than just locker rooms.

Griffin exhales, but it’s not relief. He doesn’t believe me. “Stay away from him, Kat.”

I don’t answer. Just hang up.

Because if I say anything else, I might scream.

Ten minutes later, Riley Stevens appears in my office like some chic, corporate storm cloud. I’m still riding the residual heat of the Griffin argument, still wound tight from lying through my teeth.

“We need to talk,” she says, not waiting for me to agree.

Her voice gives nothing away, but my gut churns anyway. I grab my tablet and follow her down the hall. Whatever this is, it’s big.

She leads me into a conference room.

My heels click, echoing with each step, but it’s not the noise that has my pulse in my throat—it’s the knowledge that something’s waiting behind that door.

And when she opens it, I see exactly what.

Liam.

His eyes meet mine and hold. Hard.

Six foot four of pure temptation in a plain black T-shirt stretched across a chest that should be illegal and dark jeans that clingto thick thighs like they were custom cut. He’s leaning forward, arms braced on the table, forearms flexed, the curve of veins visible beneath tan skin and tattoos I know better than I should.

My breath catches.

His hair’s still damp from the shower—dark, tousled waves that curl slightly at the edges like he towel-dried it in a rush. It’s unfair how effortlessly good he looks, like he just stepped out of a Calvin Klein ad but with the mood of a grudge match.

And then the scent hits me.

Clean skin, soap, and a hint of cedar and spice that clings to him no matter how hard I try to pretend I haven’t memorized it. My stomach tightens. My thighs, too. Because the moment my body remembers, it doesn’t care that my brain is screaming warnings.

He glances up.

Our eyes lock.