Chapter 6 · Private Translator

"Put that down. Or tell me why your mother is on my cap table."

I don't put it down. My fingers just go tighter around the spine of the ledger, knuckles white, like squeezing harder is going to make this not happening.

Jae Min steps closer, close enough that I catch the cold off his suit jacket, the kind of cold that only comes from air-conditioned boardrooms, not from actually being outside in real weather. His hand lands over mine on the cover. Not gentle. Not rough either. Just final, like a door shutting somewhere you can't see.

"Let go, Ms. Santos."

"It's just old paperwork. Housekeeping keeps everything." My voice comes out steadier than I feel, which surprises both of us. I watch his eyebrow twitch at that.

"Housekeeping doesn't keep forty-year-old share registries in a linen closet." He peels the ledger out from under my hand, finger by finger, unhurried, like he's got all the time in the world and I've got none. For one second his skin is against mine, warm where I expected cold.