Chapter 8 · The Toast She Wrote

Jae's arm stayed flat across the elevator doors, right at Lila's collarbone, and he didn't move it even when Grant's shoe wedged into the gap.

"Get your arm off the door," Grant said, pleasant as a menu recitation. "Or I file a complaint with HR that says exactly what it looks like."

"It looks like a private conversation, Mr. Whitfield." Jae didn't blink. "Which you're interrupting."

"With her?" Grant's eyes cut to Lila, and something in them wasn't concern, it was inventory, like he was pricing her uniform. "She's staff. She doesn't do private with executives. That's a whole HR module, actually."

Lila's back hit the mirrored wall. She could smell Jae's cologne, cedar and something sharper underneath, and she could feel her own pulse doing something stupid in her throat. Grant's shoe was still in the door. The elevator kept trying to close and bouncing back, over and over, a soft mechanical complaint nobody was listening to.

"I need to get back to my cart," she said, to neither of them.

"You need," Jae said, low, only for her,