Page 11 of Fallen Starboy

Like knives in my back, the words opened wounds I’d tried desperately to cover up over the years. “Listen, since we’re going to be working with each other for a little while, why don’t you and I call a truce?”

I held out a hand I didn’t really expect him to take. He had every reason in the world to want me as far away from him as possible, but since things were what they were, we didn’t really have much of a choice. Neither of us could afford to rock the boat. He was new talent, just getting a foothold in the agency, and I was vying for a promotion. For either one of us to cause problems, it would mean the dismissal of our goals.

He leaned forward and gripped my hand in his, animosity still roiling in the depths of his eyes. “Let’s get a few things straight here.” I tried to pull away, but he refused to let me, his grip like iron around my tiny hand. “You’re the last person I want to work with ever. It makes me sick to even look at you when I think about?—”

“How about a few ground rules, then?” I gripped him back, refusing to let him think he’d won. I’d played the hardened bitch all this time, the least I could do was keep up the image. “We don’t talk about the past. We stay out of each others’ way. If we need to meet, I’ll let you know. And in the meantime, I’ll devote all the time I have to finding a replacement for my position.” I blinked away the pain building in my chest, refusing to let the tightness there win. “Sound good?”

He pumped my hand once, then dropped it, the feeling returning to the tips of my fingers once released. The renewed blood flow was like pins and needles, and I hissed as I flexed them, willing the pain to stop.

I took his nod as acquiescence.

“I’ll contact HR and have some temp staff sent over to the hotel to collect your things. Your head of security can bring your—your?—”

“My daughter?”

I bit my lip and nodded. Why the hell was it so hard to say? “Right. Yourdaughter.Send him the address?—”

“I need the address to send it to him.”

I held out my hand, and the fucker had the audacity to stand there and stare at it like it was a poisonous viper, ready to strike. “Hand me your phone,” I huffed, already feeling like the room was closing in on me from so much prolonged contact with the last man on the earth who wanted to be near me.

“Like hell,” he spat, tucking the damn thing behind his back. “Hand yours over.”

I didn’t worry that he’d find anything inappropriate on it. But at the last minute, I realized he’d need the lock code, and as I opened my mouth to ask for it back, he swiped his finger across the screen in a familiar pattern, chuckling to himself when the screen showed him my home page.

“How did you . . . ”

There was an innocent, almost playful lilt to his voice as he smirked, staring down at the contacts page on the screen. “You never change your passcodes. You always forget them when you change them. It’s still the same?—”

Still the same as when we were together.

A light blush crept up his throat as he cut himself off and quickly entered his information, almost throwing it back at me in his haste to cover up the fact that he knew me so well.

I stared down at the new contact he’d saved himself as, and chuckled.

Your Worst Nightmare.

How fitting.

“Shall we, sir?” I asked politely, gritting my teeth as I extended a hand toward the door. “I’ve got a company car ready downstairs to transport us to your new home.”

As if he’d done this a hundred times, Jun stuck his nose in the air and strode past me like I wasn’t even there, heading confidently in the wrong direction.

I couldn’t stifle the giggle that slipped unbidden from my lips.

The glare he pinned me with didn’t kill the sound, either.

“Car’s this way,” I said, pointing in the opposite direction. “Unless you’re planning to exit out the back and walk around the building to get there.”

“Ladies first,” he snarled, mimicking my hand motion.

I didn’t bother to dignify his mockery with an answer.

This was going to be torture.

Chapter

Four

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