“I have never been more serious.”
“You could have anyone.”
His expression hardened.
“That sentence tells me you still don’t understand what you did.”
She swallowed.
He gestured toward the door.
“Leave.”
“Preston—”
“Whatever personal assumptions you made about me gave you no right to humiliate her.
We will discuss your conduct separately.
Not now.”
Veronica looked at me one last time.
The superiority was gone.
So was the pity.
She picked up her purse and walked out.
The conference-room door clicked shut.
I was alone with Preston.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I found my voice.
“You shouldn’t have said that because of her.”
“I didn’t.”
“You heard what she said and felt sorry for me.”
“No.”
His answer came so quickly that I looked up.
Preston loosened his tie slightly, the first sign of tension I had seen from him all afternoon.
“If anything, hearing her forced me to recognize what my silence was allowing you to believe.”
I stared at him.
“You knew?”
“That you had feelings for me?”
My embarrassment returned with full force.
He almost smiled.
“No.
I hoped.
That is different.”
I blinked.
“You hoped?”
“For a man who manages my schedule, you’re suddenly struggling with very simple language.”
A startled laugh escaped me.
It was the first time I had ever heard Preston make a joke about himself.
His expression softened.
“I didn’t pursue you because you work for me.
I wasn’t going to use my position to corner you into something you might feel unable to refuse.”
That answer mattered more than he could have known.
The danger around Preston had always existed at the edges of my awareness.
The rumors.
The people who lowered their voices around his name.
The power that followed him into elevators and conference rooms.
But with me, in that moment, he was careful.
“I meant what I said,” he continued.
“But what happens with it is your choice.”
I looked down at the contract folder.
For six months, I had imagined dozens of impossible versions of this conversation.
None included me being brave.
Maybe that was the part I had been missing.
I set the folder on the table.
“If I weren’t your assistant?” I asked.
