Page 34 of Forty, Flirty & Framed

I manage a crooked smile.“At 2:30 in the morning?I'd say we’re well past any professional standards."

She laughs quietly, a husky sound that does nothing to ease the heat sliding under my skin.

And then—worse—she runs her fingers through her hair, loosening the dark waves even further, until I have to grit my teeth against the reckless need to reach out.

To touch.

Instead, I force my voice light.Professional.

"Come on.I'll call a car.We both need sleep."

As she gathers her laptop and shuffles her papers into a pile, I tell myself I'm not watching the sway of her hips, the curve of her bare calves under the hem of her pencil skirt.

I tell myself a lot of things.

None of them true.

9

MOTHER KNOWS BEST

KARINA

"Delete it," I say, jabbing my finger at Viktoria's laptop screen."Can't you just delete all of it?"

My sister gives me a look that clearly questions my sanity."That's not how the internet works, and you know it."

It's Saturday afternoon, ten days since the #KiltedCasanova saga began, and five days since I fell asleep at a conference table across from Callum Abernathy.

Five days of feeling strangely flustered whenever he glances my way a beat too long.

We're sitting at our mother's kitchen table, July sunshine streaming through windows that overlook a modest but meticulously maintained garden.

The house hasn't changed much since our childhood.

Same yellow walls.Same worn tile floors.

Same faint scent of cardamom and coffee in the air.

The only new addition is the industrial-sized dehumidifier humming aggressively in the corner, battling the aftermath of last week's plumbing disaster.

Half the kitchen floor is still torn up, exposing the subfloor where the emergency plumber had to cut away water-damaged sections.

The repair estimate sits on the counter, the total circled in red—a number large enough to make my stomach clench.

"We can't erase everything," Viktoria continues, typing rapidly."But we can strengthen the digital trail for the legitimate parts of your resume and bury the...creative embellishments...under enough verification layers that even a serious audit would have trouble finding inconsistencies."

I turn back to the cutting board where I'm prepping dinner, chopping vegetables with the efficiency of someone who's been cooking for family since childhood.

The knife moves in quick, practiced motions—a skill developed at twelve when I became the de facto household manager.

"This is insane," I mutter, attacking an onion."I'm working with a man who values integrity above everything, and I can't even be honest about my own background."

"It's not like you made up your skills," Viktoria points out."You just...enhanced the credentials."

"Enhanced.Like photoshopping a picture to remove a pimple, except the pimple is three years of missing corporate experience."I scrape the onions into a bowl, blinking against their sting.

Or that's what I tell myself, at least.