“You make a good point,” he says. “I’ll keep that in mind for future gifts, too. At the moment, though, I was hoping to talk about the very interesting piece of correspondence I received this morning.”

For a moment, I have no idea what he could be talking about. Then I remember the drive in the Bentley. Oh my.

“Are you in an office or a cubicle?” he asks.

“An office,” I say. I swallow, recalling all the things I wrote in that letter.

“In that case, my dear Ms. Fairchild, I think you should close your door. For that matter, I think you should lock it.”

“Damien, I’m at work,” I protest, but I do as he says.

“What a coincidence. So am I. Imagine my surprise as I’m reviewing my morning mail. Requests to speak at business conferences. Investment opportunities. Real estate proposals. All intriguing opportunities, but none so enticing as what I find when I open a simple letter sent on my very own stationery.”

“Damien …”

“You have a way with words, Ms. Fairchild. I was quite relieved that my assistant was at her desk when I read your letter. I don’t know that I would have been able to hide my erection. You really are quite a little minx.”

My brows lift. “A minx?”

“I can still remember the sound of your voice,” he quotes, “so smooth I almost came just from the sound of it. And the cool leather against the hot skin of my ass. Even then, I wanted your hands on me, your cock inside me. I barely knew you, and yet I wanted to submit to you utterly.” He says, “Yes, I think minx is a very accurate description.”

“Oh.” Hearing my own words read back to me, I have to silently agree. “I was inspired.”

“I’m very glad to hear it. When I ran across the scarf in the apartment this morning it reminded me of you, and after I got your letter, I thought that I should return it right away. You see, we didn’t really let that scarf live up to its potential.”

“We didn’t?” My mouth is dry.

“No,” he says, softly. “But I intend to make up for that. There are a lot of things one can do with a scarf. A lot of things one can do with fringe. The delicate brush over your erect nipple. A teasing stroke over your hot cunt. I promise you that we’ll fully explore all of the various possibilities.”

“Um.” I swallow.

“Wear it today and think about what I’ll do with it tonight.”

“Tonight?” I ask, as I drape the scarf around my neck.

Damien laughs. “I’ll pick you up at seven,” he says. “I’ll have you naked by eight.”

I float through the rest of the afternoon, though I do manage to partition off my Damien thoughts so that I manage to accomplish some work. My head is down as I step off the elevator at the end of the day. I’m reading a text from Jamie detailing exactly how amazing Raine is, so I don’t notice Carl until he steps right in front of me.

“Nikki.”

I freeze, momentarily caught off guard. Then I regain my senses and start walking again. “We don’t have anything to say to each other.”

“Wait,” he calls. “Please.”

Maybe it’s the “please,” but I pause just before the exit. I don’t turn around, but I hear him hurrying up behind me. “Two minutes,” I say, then step out the door and wait under the building awning.

He slides in with the exiting crowd and joins me outside. I don’t say anything. I just stand there, my face blank, my arms crossed over my chest.

He has a paper tucked under his arm, and he holds it out to me as if it’s an apology. I don’t take it, but I glance down and see that it is the same issue of Tech World that Bruce brought into my office earlier. I meet Carl’s eyes, and remain silent.

“Dammit, Nikki, I didn’t know there was any other company in that market.”

“What is it you want, Carl?” My voice is icy.

“I just—well, I may have acted rashly.”

Ya think? I want to shout the words and slap his face. With effort, I remain quietly stoic.

“It’s just that, I thought you were fucking Stark.”

I am on the verge of boiling now, and I want nothing more than to get away from this toxic little man. But I force myself to conjure a thin smile as I lift my chin just slightly. “I am.”

Carl actually looks embarrassed. “Right, right. I mean, yeah, I’ve seen the pictures of you two and all that. It’s just that, well, I thought you had a fight. Or that maybe Stark thought that you and I had a thing going.”

“I promise you he thinks much more highly of me than that.”

“Dammit, Nikki, I’m trying to apologize here.”

“Is that what this is about?” I’m genuinely surprised.

“I fucked up, okay? I was stupid and I blew the whole thing out of proportion.” He runs his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end and giving him an even more harried appearance. “I acted rashly, and I’m sorry.”

I cock my head, trying to hear the part that he’s not saying. “We’re talking about more than firing me, aren’t we?” My skin prickles with worry. “What did you do, Carl?”

“Oh, hell. Other shit. You know.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “All you said was that you were going to fuck Damien over. So what did you do?” My left hand is closed into a tight fist, my nails biting into my palm. It is only through a supreme force of will that I am remaining calm. “Dammit, Carl. What other shit are you talking about?”

He stays silent, his expression unreadable.

“For Christ’s sake, Carl, why did you come here in the first place?”

He sucks in a gulp of air. “You know how Stark paid Padgett off, right? And now Padgett has to keep his mouth shut.”

“How do you know that?” Eric Padgett was threatening to go public with his theory that Damien had something to do with his sister’s death, and Damien actually wrote a check to shut the worm up. It’s not something I like to think about. More than that, the terms of the settlement were supposed to be confidential.

“I know a lot of things. Padgett did a lot of talking before he got Stark’s money. And most of his talking was to other people with an ax to grind against Stark. Trust me when I say that I realized pretty fast that Padgett was the least of Stark’s worries. There are a lot of people who want to see the shit fly.”