Chapter 70

Agnes

The door to Elijah’s office swung open with a quiet creak, and I stepped inside, clutching my notepad to my chest. He was seated at his desk, his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair, the sleeves of his crisp white button down rolled up to his elbows. He looked up as I entered, his sharp gaze softening just a fraction when it landed on me.

“Agnes,” he said, leaning back slightly. “Perfect timing.”

I blinked, a little thrown off by his tone. It wasn’t the brusque, businesslike cadence he usually adopted during the workday. Instead, it was almost something closer to relief.

“What’s going on?” I asked, shutting the door behind me and stepping closer to his desk.

He gestured toward his phone, which was lit up with a string of emails on the screen. “My assistant is out sick. I’ve got a business lunch with some business partners in a little under an hour, and I need someone to accompany me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You want me to accompany you to a business lunch?” I found myself asking—not that I had an issue with being his assistant for the day, but rather that I wouldn’t know how to help.

“You’ll do fine,” he replied as if reading my mind. “You’ve got a good head for this sort of thing, and it’ll be a chance for you to observe how these sorts of meetings work. Consider it a learning opportunity. Your next lesson as Luna.”

I hesitated, biting the inside of my cheek. It wasn’t like I could say no—not to him. And it did sound intriguing, if not a little nerve-wracking. I hadn’t had a ‘Luna lesson’ in quite some time now. “Alright,” I finally said. “What do I need to know?”

Elijah’s lips twitched upward in a faint smile, but before he could reply, his eyes flicked downward, and his brow furrowed. “What happened to your shirt?”

I glanced down, suddenly remembering the ‘accidental’ coffee stain that my darling sister had so lovingly bestowed upon me earlier. When I moved my notepad aside I saw that the dark blotch was even bigger now, and had spread across the entire front of my shirt.

“Oh,” I said, brushing at it futilely. “It’s nothing. Someone spilled coffee on me earlier.”

Elijah stood, rounding the desk in a single, fluid motion. Before I could protest, he was standing in front of me, his eyes roving across the stain. “You can’t go to a meeting like this,” he said with a shake of his head. “Here, let me see if I can get it out.”

“It’s fine,” I started to say, but the words got lodged in my throat as he reached for the stained fabric. His fingers brushed against the front of my blouse, the heat of his touch seeping through the thin material. My breath hitched as his knuckles skimmed just above the line of my bra, and for a moment, all I could do was stand there, frozen.

“Hold still,” he murmured, his voice low and steady. His brow furrowed in concentration as he dabbed at the stain with a handkerchief he had pulled out of his pocket. The proximity was dizzying, his scent filling the space between us.

My cheeks burned at the sensation of his fingers rubbing against my skin as he deftly worked, and I fought the urge to step back, to put some distance between us. But I couldn’t move. Not when his hands were so warm and steady against me. Instead, I glanced up at his face…

Only to find his eyes fixed intently on the stain and his expression as cool and unreadable as ever.

It hit me then like a bucket of ice water: he wasn’t touching me like this on purpose. He wasn’t trying to make my heart race or set my skin on fire. He was just… fixing the problem. Making sure our image was pristine.

Nothing more.

The realization made my stomach twist all over again, a heady combination of disappointment and something I didn’t want to name settling in the pit that had formed inside of me.

How long would it take for me to stop feeling this way? How long would it be before I finally stopped feeling like a lovesick schoolgirl in front of him?

Finally, Elijah sighed and pulled back. “It’s not coming out,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t have time to wash it before the meeting, so I’ll have to take you to a store nearby. We’ll get you a new blouse there.”

“Elijah, I can just put on a blazer,” I protested weakly, but he was already moving toward the door.

“No. I want you to be comfortable.”

Before I knew it, we were in the car, weaving through midday traffic as Elijah navigated toward the nearest department store. True to his word, he ushered me inside, and within minutes, I had a crisp white blouse in my size in hand. But as we rushed to the cash register, he glanced at his watch and muttered something under his breath.

“We’re cutting it close,” he said, paying and guiding me away from the register. “I hope you don’t mind changing in the car.”

“What?” I stared at him, incredulous. “But the fitting rooms—”

He opened the shop door for me. “We don’t have time. Just change. I won’t look.”

I hesitated, glancing at my own watch. He was right; we didn’t have time. Gritting my teeth, I climbed into the passenger seat of the car and closed the door. Elijah started the engine, his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead.

“Don’t look,” I warned him as I pulled off my blazer.

“I won’t.”

Working quickly, I unbuttoned my stained blouse, my movements hurried and awkward in the small space. The air inside the car felt stiflingly warm, and I tried not to think about the fact that Elijah was sitting mere inches away from my shirtless body.

As I shrugged out of the shirt, my lacy pink bra came into view, the delicate material doing little to hide the flush spreading across my skin.

Elijah’s sharp intake of breath caught me off guard, and I glanced up just in time to see his grip on the steering wheel tighten. His jaw clenched, and for a moment, his eyes darted toward me before snapping back to the road.

My face went crimson. Impossibly so. As in, the shade of red that could only be natural for a tomato.

As I fumbled with the new blouse, pulling it over my shoulders and struggling to get the buttons done up, the tension in the car was palpable. My hands were shaking, and I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or something else entirely.

In fact, I was so flustered that my fingers slipped on the last button, and I swore under my breath.

But in an instant, everything changed.

“Shit. Red light. Hold on!”

It was then that Elijah’s foot slammed on the brakes, and the car came screeching to a sudden halt. My heart leapt into my throat as my body lurched forward, only to be stopped by the press of his arm against my chest. His hand braced against me instinctively, his palm cupping—

I froze.

And so did he, when he looked down at where his hand met my body.