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“Was there a note?” he asks, voice like the pause between thunder and lightning.

“Just ‘To Blake.’ That’s all.”

“Show me.”

I blink. “Excuse me?”

He lifts his hand.

I take too long responding, and his eyes flash that warning look, no hesitation in the gleam.

A chill dances down my spine.

“I’m not being dramatic when I say this, Blake. If someone’s sending you strange gifts here, I should know.”

My heart thunders.

“What, exactly, do you plan to do if that’s true?” I shoot back, needing something to steel myself against the look in his face. “We were never anything. You might have said we were the night you helped me but—" I cut myself off and renew my resolve. "You said one night. One night. You don’t get to play mafia bodyguard now just because you—because we?—”

“Don’t,” he snaps. “If someone’s trying to get to you,” he repeats, stepping even closer, “then they’re going to have to crawl through me first.”

The air between us sharpens. I breathe it like static.

I want to say it’s romantic.

It’s not.

It’s a threat to the dark.

I step back, flinching only a little.

“You don’t have to defend me,” I murmur. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

A muscle jumps in his jaw.

“It means something,” he says quietly but with enough heat to make my throat dry.

His gaze burns into me. Not heated like before. Not leading to anything we can’t take back again.

Protective. Territorial. Furious.

And under it all? Something I don’t dare name.

“You don’t even know me,” I say one last time.

He answers without blinking. “Which is what worries me.”

I step around him, throat working. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to worry about me again. You're my boss, that's all.”

I lie through my teeth. It's the only thing between me and breaking.

I don’t stop walking even though my knees wobble. I don’t look up even though he’s probably watching me with that unreadable expression of his.

Professional.

Unbothered.

Cool under pressure.