Chapter 24 · The Box

"Give it back, Rowan." Callum's hand was already on the lid.

I slammed my palm down on top of the box before his fingers closed around it. "Get off my desk."

"It's not yours."

"Everything in this room is mine. That's literally my job title." I pushed him back an inch, close enough that I could smell the cedar and salt still clinging to him from the port, close enough that the mark on my collarbone went hot and stupid the second his shoulder brushed mine. I hated that it still did that. I hated it more than I hated him standing in my archive at eleven at night like he owned the floor.

"Rowan." His voice dropped. "I need what's in there."

"You mean you need it gone."

He didn't answer that. Which was an answer.

I'd pulled the box out of the deep shelf two hours ago, the one nobody but me had a key to, the one labeled in my own handwriting from four years back: PORT — RHEE MERGER — DO NOT SHRED. I hadn't opened it yet.