Page 46 of Money Reigns

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Enough to notice that this time, I won’t be seen with anyone at all.

Not unless I change that.

Not unless I want her there.

My mouth curves, slow and deliberate.

Dangerous.

Inviting.

She won’t know which until it’s too late.

“Didn’t peg you as the tabloid type, Ms. Baker.”

She flushes deeper. “I’m not. I mean, I don’t, it just popped up in a headline once, when I was—”

“Researching the company?”

“Yes,” she blurts, too fast.

I lean back in my chair, let the silence do the rest.

Because now I know.

She sees me.

And I haven’t decided yet if that makes her lucky…

or damned.

***

Two weeks with Olivia Baker is intoxicating.

Not in the way champagne fizzes in your blood.

No. She seeps under the skin like venom

Sweet. Subtle. Slow.

By the time you feel the burn, you’re already addicted.

It starts in the chest, tight and aching. Then spreads.

She doesn’t even realize it, how she ruins my concentration just by breathing in my proximity.

Today, I don’t need her for much.

But I want her close.

So I make something up.

“Olivia.”

She looks up from her desk, hair tied back, pen between her fingers, eyes too bright for this early in the morning.

There’s a smudge of ink on her knuckle. I want to wipe it off with my thumb.Or my mouth.

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