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These accolades would only garner a terse nod from Father and a passing ruffle of my hair, if I were lucky. Mother would flatten her lips in approval, noting this was all to be expected, as we should never settle for second best.

Knock. Knock.

“I have to go. Someone is at the door. Thank you for the birthday wishes.” I smile at my sisters and my little niece, who is stuffing a chocolate chip cookie she procured out of nowhere into her mouth while garbling something which sounds like happy birthday.

Chocolate is smeared all over those cute little lips again, and Jess lets out an exasperated sigh .

Emily points her index and middle fingers toward her eyes and then toward the screen, the universal hand signal suggesting she’d be watching my every move.

Chuckling, I wave goodbye and set down the phone.

Knock. Knock.

The rapping at the door is more incessant. My muscles tense as I prepare myself for whoever is at the door. I hope it’s not Sean again.

“Come in,” I holler, trying to focus my attention on the texts I missed when I dozed off. There are at least a dozen from the idiots I call my friends.

Charles

Don’t make me come over there and haul you out of your office.

Ryland

Welcome to almost being thirty. Enjoy your last year before you become old like the rest of us.

Parker

Considering I’m the oldest out of everyone, that is a bit offensive.

Maxwell

Ryland is a coldhearted bastard. Ignore him.

Rex

Burn. The man who never speaks always tells the truth.

Lana

My brothers are idiots, and I’m still in the twenties club. Happy birthday, Steven. Dinner soon?

Charles

I’m not getting in the middle of the Anderson squabble. As your good friend, I’m obligated to make sure you aren’t burying yourself in work today. I have spies at your firm. If they report you’re at the office past five today, don’t blame me for taking more extreme measures.

I smirk at the text messages; the vines circling my lungs loosen slightly, and I turn on the silent function on my phone.

At this rate, in a matter of minutes, there’ll be at least fifty messages from the group chat, which they changed the name from “The Orchid Shenanigans” to “Save Steven from Himself.”

Soft footsteps approach me. A hint of jasmine wafts through the air and I inhale the sweet scent, my heart beginning to kick up in rhythm because I already know who’ll be standing in front of me when I look up.

Someone who makes me want to spill the heaviness in my soul, letting her shoulder part of the burden, so I can rest my head against her warmth for a brief respite.

Someone whose quiet conversations in the morning sustain me for the rest of the day. It’s as if the world has stopped and we’re the only two people left standing. And everything is still fine. More than fine.

Someone who drives me crazy. Insane. Mad with emotions I never thought I had, gifting me with the liabilities plaguing my father his entire life.

Someone I’ll have to deliver a devastating blow to on Friday.

Grace.

My hands slowly curl into fists, and I swallow the sudden lump forming in my throat. I feel as if my carefully crafted world is spinning out of control, and I don’t know what to do.

She’ll understand.

She’s considerate and kind and can see through me. She knows me better than most people. She’s also logical and reasonable. She’ll understand this is a business decision and has no bearing on us—whatever we are.

My reassurances are weak, even in my mind. Looking up, I find her standing in front of me, her hair tied up in a simple ponytail, her face devoid of makeup as usual. She’s wearing another variation of her grandmother’s closet, but I don’t seem to notice the details anymore.

All I see are her large eyes, almost sapphire in the mid-morning light, with a hint of gray at the edges, her pert nose, those perfectly symmetrical lips. Her tongue dips out, the movement reminding me of yesterday morning, and my groin clenches in response.

“Mr. Kingsley,” she says, her sweet voice slightly breathless, as if she could read all the nonsensical thoughts flittering through my mind.

“Grace.” I have an irrational impulse to whisper her name against her soft skin, to feel goosebumps pebble her flesh as she shakes beneath me.

Fuck. Something is terribly, horribly wrong. The insomnia is getting to you, Steven.

We stare at each other, the soft blue light from the windows highlighting the way her pupils widen as the silence stretches on. The way her breath seems to catch in her throat. The way her delicate throat ripples as she swallows.

She blinks, her long lashes fan against her cheeks, and subtly shakes her head. She shoves a stack of binders on my desk. The thump reverberates in the quiet room.

“Hayley asked me to give these to you. We just prepared a fresh set of analysis on the Scott portfolio,” Grace whispers, her fingers twisting in front of her before clutching the sweater in a death grip. She gnaws on her plump bottom lip again.

My eyes dip to the motion before trailing back up to her gaze. Lifting a corner of my mouth, I rasp, “Nervous?”

Her eyes flare and spark before her lips quirk up into a big grin, no doubt thinking about a similar conversation we had the first time she stepped foot into my office .

“No.” She crosses her arms and stands taller. Definitely an Amazonian disguised as a weakling. “I’m just waiting to see if you have a question for me.”

I smile at her near verbatim response from that first morning when she sat in front of me, determination laced in her voice as she fought to stay composed, to not cower in front of the King of Wall Street.

The organ in my chest thumps harder, pumping the warmth to the rest of my body.

A tingle appears at the base of my spine and my breathing comes out in soft pants.

I slowly stand, watching her lips part as she looks up at me, towering over her by almost a foot.

My fingers trace circles on the binders she placed on the desk just now, fighting an impulse to reach out and haul her toward me.

And what? This is getting ridiculous. Common sense and logic, Steven.

The guilt wars with the desire as I try to shove these unfamiliar sensations back into Pandora’s box. I need to pull away, to put distance between us. It’s the right thing to do.

She’ll understand.

I flinch at the thought, clutching to it like a life vest in the middle of a sinking ship.

She’ll understand.

My fingers clench on to the binders. A muscle pulses in my jaw.

Grace swallows, her enticing mouth still parted, looking too inviting. Too tempting. She lets out a shuddering breath, letting me know I’m not alone in this strange insanity we find ourselves trapped in. She takes an imperceptible step back.

Creating distance. Letting the shutters fall.

It’s smart. It’s logical. It’s rational. It’s what I should do.

But damn if I don’t want to stride around the desk and pull her flush against me so she can’t escape.

Then I’ll bury my nose in the crook of her neck and inhale the sweet scent of jasmine and spice, giving my lungs a breath of life.

Then I’d beg for forgiveness and tell her to give me one year so I can get the promotion, save Father’s company, and give her a better job offer.

I’m going crazy. The abyss in my chest finally swallowing me whole.

“I-I couldn’t help overhearing just now, before I knocked… Is it your birthday today?”

I nod. My voice is on a hiatus, every nerve ending in my body sizzling, the circuit on the verge of overloading from the barrage of sensations and…emotions scrambling inside me. I can’t even begin to comb through and make sense of them all.

A spark of excitement appears in those gorgeous eyes, and she smiles, showing the whites of her teeth.

My heart skips several beats.

“I want to make a deal.”

The tingles in my spine burgeon into a sharp current and I can’t help myself but lean forward, transfixed by the energy she emanates.

“A deal,” I murmur, watching the pulse fluttering in her neck as she holds herself still as if fighting an impulse to step back.

She nods vigorously. “I’m guessing you don’t have any plans today. It seems like I can’t leave you to your own devices.”

“And what are you going to do about it?”

“I know you won the bet and one of my days is yours. But I’d like a rain check on that. Instead, I’d like to have one of your days.”

My blood heats as I’m reminded of the night I didn’t want to think about, and the strange emotions that coursed through me when I was standing on the stage singing…for her.

My life is about order. Papers stacked neatly in corners.

Turning the faucet specifically three times to achieve the optimal level of heat.

Making sure I only have one pen of each color on my desk before I start my day.

Going to the gym at precisely four a.m. on the dot.

Burying myself in my work, my only passion in life.

And she comes barreling in like a wrecking ball, toppling over my carefully constructed routines, teasing out the thoughts nestled in the deepest recesses of my mind, unlocking emotions I thought I didn’t have .

My friend is dangerous. An atomic bomb packaged in an unassuming box. I can feel my fingers hovering above the number pad, slowly entering the nuclear codes which will obliterate the world as I know it.

She occupies my waking thoughts, disrupting the logic I’ve known as my companion all these years. The conversation from Sean flits through my mind.

I should stay away.

“And what do I get in return?” I murmur, the predator instincts in me roaring to life, telling me to strike, but not knowing if I’m going to lurch forward to tear her into pieces or to dive into her to savor every morsel.

She falters, the fluttering on her neck becoming more pronounced, and an enticing pink flush slowly spreads over her pale skin like watercolor. I want to be the one holding the damn paintbrush to tease out those beautiful streaks. To create art with my blunt strokes and her vibrant hues.

“Another one of my days.” The answer comes out in a breathy whisper, one I can easily imagine funneling out of her lips when she writhes on the bed, her body draped in nothing but silk sheets as I feast between her legs.

Suddenly, all thoughts of guilt and job offers fly out the window. Dust in the wind. Sharp lust shoots straight into my groin, my dick stiffening in a matter of seconds. My body is malfunctioning, the urge to fuck overpowering, completely off track from my orderly schedule of one tryst per quarter.

These sensations are not friendly, the opposite of platonic.

The rational man inside me should heed to the advice Father gave me inadvertently that night when I caught him with the woman.

I should remember the way Mother would secretly cry whenever Father disappeared on a “business trip,” the way our fucking COO died of a heart attack because he listened to his wife, the woman he loved, such that he ditched his responsibilities and traveled to the middle of the sea where he couldn’t get any medical help.

I should say no .

I should tell her to get back to work instead of tempting me.

I should disabuse myself of the notion this was ever a friendship.

Fucking shoulds. The most useless word in the dictionary.

My eyes flit to the calendar on my computer monitor. The meetings and calls I have lined up for the rest of the day, with precisely fifteen-minute breaks between each event to allow myself time to decompress.

“Fine. Deal.”

The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

It’s almost as if my mind and my body are not communicating to each other, one turning against the other, and this warmth in my chest is taking the driver’s seat, giving the middle finger to all the rules and thoughts governing my almost thirty years on earth.

Grace claps her hands in excitement and rocks on her heels. The current in my spine crackles, and I swear I could see sparks coming out of me. Her mouth splits into a big smile, warming up the entire room, which felt colder than usual this morning.

“Great. I’m cashing it in today. Meet me out front at four p.m.”

She whirls around and takes her energy with her, leaving behind her intoxicating scent of jasmine, and a lingering heat in my heart.

I look at the haphazard piles of binders on my desk, the blacks scattered amongst the reds, papers sticking out, and a bittersweetness rises to the forefront.

She’ll understand.