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“I’m saying I don’t know if I can survive it if it does.” I shook my head. “Leo and Cal…The secret…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say the words. I had buried them so deeply, finding them meant digging through years of hurt.

Thea reached across the table and took my hand. “Whatever happens, I’ll back you. But you need to figure out your boundaries—fast.”

We ate lunch and made a plan for dinner, and when I returned to my office, the sky had gone gray. Seattle in midafternoon was its usual shade of gray—overcast and a little damp. People moved through it like they were used to it, barely reacting as a fine mist clung to their jackets and hair.

I was back at my desk, settling in after lunch and still turning over everything Thea had said, when my office line lit up with an internal page.

I didn’t answer it—figured it could wait until I got through the emails piling up in my inbox.

A few minutes later, Dominic appeared outside my door with a determined look on his face.

He stood there with his broad shoulders framed by a slate-gray suit, his cufflinks catching the overhead light as he adjusted his sleeve. His expression gave nothing away, like a man used to controlling every room he entered, and I hated that it still worked on me.

“Savannah,” he said calmly, like he hadn’t had his hands up my skirt two hours ago.

I raised my chin. “Mr. Knight…” Seeing him in my office doorway prickled my skin in a good way, and nauseated me a little too. My body tensed, and I felt blood rushing to my groin already.

“Got a minute?”

I glanced down the hall and saw that it was empty, no one around to witness whatever this might turn into. I hesitated anyway, unsure if I could handle another moment alone with him without losing my grip.

“Sure,” I stuttered and minimized the tabs on my computer.

He stepped closer, closing enough distance to send a jolt through me, but still careful not to cross a line. The space between us shrank just enough to make my pulse catch.

“You heard about the proposal?”

I snorted and shook my head, offering a smile of disbelief. “The media power couple fantasy? Yeah, it came up.” I couldn’t read his expression to know what he was thinking, but there was no way he could honestly think this was a good idea. It was an election year again. Dad would flip out.

He didn’t smile—not even a twitch. “If it’s a bad idea, we don’t do it,” he said quietly. “But if it’s a good one, I want to know if you’ll be in it with me.” If it’s a good one? He was asking my opinion? I was confused.

My breath caught in my throat as I pondered what he was thinking. He looked at me like he was asking for more than a PR stunt. Like he was giving me a chance to see something more about him than he let others see.

I tried to play it off, but my hands shook with anxious tension. I coiled them together in my lap under my desk so he couldn’t see. “What, and let the gossip blogs pick out our couple name? I’m thinking Domannah.”

He didn’t react, and his mouth stayed still.

He studied me for a long moment before he spoke again.

“They’re not forcing this. If you’re uncomfortable, say so.

But if there’s a part of you that thinks this could work—for the campaign—I want to hear it.

This is what you do right—branding people? So tell me what you think?”

I swallowed hard and tried to keep my voice steady. “You don’t know the first thing about how to brand yourself…”

His eyes narrowed, not in anger, but focus. “Then tell me. I’m listening.”

I couldn’t look at him directly, not when I still ached where his hands had been. Not when my mind was screaming with the secret I still hadn’t told him.

So I shook my head, more to collect myself than to answer him. I pushed my chair back and stood.

“We should get back to work,” I said, forcing the words out even though I could barely think straight. “I have to think about this.” I turned back to my computer, but he didn’t budge from my office. My pulse felt like it was strangling me.

“Savannah.” His voice was softer this time, not a command but a reach.

I turned, careful not to let him see how much he was getting to me.

He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly less sure of himself. “Look…I keep thinking about earlier. About you. And I know I probably shouldn’t say this—but when can I see you like that again? You know, not just across a conference table.”

My breath caught. There was something awkward in the way he said it, like he wasn’t trying to be crude, just honest. Maybe even a little hopeful.

I didn’t answer right away because I wasn’t sure how to respond. My pulse was still too loud in my ears, and the idea of my dad finding out and being furious only complicated things.

My eyes rose to meet his and he smirked at me. “Because I’d like to bend you over a few other pieces of furniture sometime…” There was that spark—the twinkle in his eye of mischief I’d grown to understand was his heart being vulnerable.

I laughed under my breath, not because it was funny, but because it was easier than admitting how much it got to me. I reached for the mouse to shake my screen awake and turned back toward my desk.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “The whole thing.”

Dominic didn’t press me. He gave a single nod and stepped back toward the door.

“Let me know,” he said, and then he was gone.

I leaned back in my chair, heart pounding, caught between two impossible urges—to protect the life I’d built or to surrender to whatever this was becoming.

I stared at the blinking cursor on my screen, willing myself to focus, but all I could think about was him.

And the way it already felt too late to turn back.

I wasn’t ready to decide. Not yet.