Chapter 27 · No Interns

"No interns." Nico slammed the folder down so hard my coffee jumped and splashed the contract we both still hadn't finished arguing about. "Not in this office. Not near you. Not ever again."

I licked coffee off my thumb, slow, just to watch his jaw tighten. "Jealous, Falcone?"

"Careful." His voice dropped, the kind of quiet that meant something was about to break. "You signed a name, Eli. Not a hall pass."

"I signed a job." I shoved the folder back at him. "You're the one who keeps forgetting where the line is."

He leaned on the desk, both palms flat, close enough that I could smell the leather off his jacket and something under it, warm, like he'd been running. "That intern brought you coffee."

"She brought coffee for the whole floor."

"She wrote her number on your cup." He said it like a verdict. "I threw it out."

My stomach did something ugly and pleased at the same time, and I hated both halves of it. "You went through my trash?"

"I went through everything that touches you. That's the job, isn't it? Finisher." His mouth curled, not a smile, more like a warning shaped like one.