"You..." I sucked in a breath, absorbing the words, drinking in their meaning. "You were run out of L.A?"

Silver kept her back to me, but I caught her nodding once, a mumble of something escaping her lips.

"Silver? I can't hear what you're saying," I said, lifting off my chair, intent on approaching her.

"I said," she spun around in her seat so fast I fell into mine, "basically, yes."

I gulped, gripping the armrests for support. "You did mention fleeing, but I wasn't going to push..."

Silver sighed, her breath blowing up through her loose curls. I expected her to stand up, to grunt, to tell me to fuck off and mind my own business; instead, she relaxed into her seat, clasping her hands in her lap. "And I wasn't going to tell you, but now it seems I have no choice."

I hesitated but had a feeling I needed to be closer to her for this tale. So I ventured over to her desk and perched on the chair across from it. "You don't have to tell me."

"I do," she said, glancing down, a flush of red on her cheeks. "You work for me, and not knowing the truth about my background is...well," she let out a heartless chuckle, "counterproductive."

I got comfortable, hoping she trusted me, that she'd be able to divulge her past troubles to me. "Then I'm all ears."

She cocked her head side-to-side, averting her gaze. "The reason I fled L.A.? The real reason? It was because of a scandal."

I squinted, leaning forward, showing my attentiveness. "Secrets spilled?" I hated to make it seem like I was eager for information, but I had been so curious about Silver's past. It was hard to pretend not to be.

"I was sleeping with my PA." She said the words so simply, and yet there was shame and disappointment coating her tone.

And there was nothing simple about that statement.

Sleeping with her PA?

My jaw itched to fall, my lips tried to pry apart to let out a squeak of surprise, of confusion, of...anger.

Yes, anger.

She'd been involved with another PA.

My chest swelled with unease. I felt betrayed. Led astray. Lied to.

Silver leveled her chin but wouldn't look me in the eye. She knew her revelation would shock me, flare through me like a firework. "And it nearly got out, which caused the scandal."

I didn't know what to say, how to react. Shock trembled through me, and I set my hands under my thighs to steady them.

This whole time, I thought I was her forbidden fruit, her exception to the rule, her risky lover that she'd never dare tempt into peril. But I wasn't the first. This wasn't some new experience for her, was it? She'd gone through this before. She'd seduced her employees before.

For days, she played around acting like this was bad, we couldn't do this, but it was a game. She enjoyed the risk, enjoyed the result.

Silver Bell was not who I thought she was.

I should have recoiled, gotten up, stormed out of the room, packed my shit, quit on the spot. And yet...

Everything that had transpired between us was real for me. Perhaps not for her, but the sensations she'd given me, the ways she haunted me...it wasn't a game for me.

I couldn't leave without answers.

"You were sleeping with your PA." Not a question; I needed confirmation that I'd heard her right.

Sleeping with the person I'd replaced? Using her position of power to entice, sway, take pleasure?

She arched an eyebrow as she peeked at me, but when she spotted the narrowing of my eyes, the thinning of my lips, she looked back down. "Before you place your judgment, hear me out."

I owed her that much, despite the blood boiling beneath my skin. She hid this from me, but I'd give her a chance to explain herself before I took off.

Sleeping with her personal assistant? I shuddered. It was too coincidental.

Did Silver Bell have a bad habit of fucking her employees by accident? Or was this a purposeful thing for her?

Wasn't this something the temp agency should have warned me about?

Unless she hid that from them, too.

I shuddered again. I'd succumbed to her so easily, fallen into her trap. I hadn't hesitated to let her touch me, load me with an arousal I'd never experienced.

And yet even now, as I raged on the inside, I sensed myself inclining forward, drawn to her.

She was bad, she was dangerous, and still my body wouldn't quit craving hers.

This had to stop.

"This PA," she cleared her throat, "decided that he didn't want to pretend anymore."

He? A man. Silver slept with all genders, then. I wasn't sure if that turned me on more or further pissed me off.

"He decided to abuse my trust and take advantage of me, of my secrets, and threatened to expose them."

"Secrets?" My lips bunched side-to-side, containing behind them all the fury I wanted to unleash. "As in, your secret, together? The sex?"

Silver snickered, fidgeting in her seat. "Among other things."

So she does have more secrets.

I held my tongue, wanting to get her full, uninterrupted story before putting in my two cents.

"He went to the L.A. tabloids, the bastard." She growled. "They almost printed it all, but my legal team got to them first and paid them a hefty sum to keep things quiet."

"Money," I snorted, "must be nice."

"You have no right to talk, Eden," she said, and for a moment I worried she was about to tell me she knew my secret. That I was more familiar with riches than I claimed; that I'd rejected my wealthy heritage to make it on my own. "You're certainly enjoying all your new privileges, aren't you?"

I folded my arms, glaring at her. "This isn't about me right now, though, is it?"

She studied me, lips pulled tight together. "Fine. Yes, money. It is nice." She set her joined hands atop the desk, her knuckles white from keeping them so firmly clasped. "And I had to spend much of it to save my ass."

An ass she'd let another personal assistant touch. An ass I'd groped and groveled for, and as it turned out, I wasn't the only one she'd let caress her that way. Sure, she had exes, I wouldn't be jealous of that. But exes who were assistants, like me?

My stomach churned. I was just another assistant she'd gotten too familiar with. How many others had come before this dude in Los Angeles?

And did I want to know?

"We paid off a lot of people to keep his claims out of the press. And more so to ensure my image didn't leak." She straightened up, her gaze sharp, but focused on the wall behind me. "No journalists or paparazzi or news anchors are allowed to show my face, as you've figured out by now."

I held in most of the venom on my tongue; it wasn't my turn to lash out yet. "Because of your secrets."

"Yes." She got to her feet in such a calculated manner, I couldn't take my eyes off her rounded hips, her treacherous curves. "Secrets you most definitely can't handle."

"Oh, I bet I can handle them." I also stood, though my height wasn't as intimidating as hers. Nor did I carry myself with such pride, such a taut posture;, but I had nothing to be ashamed of. She did. "The reason you won't tell me is that you don't trust me. You don't trust assistants. You'd rather sleep with them and use them and—"

Silver's fist banged on the desk. "I never used you. Nor him."

"So," I moved behind the chair, "this is a thing you do, then? Sleep with your assistants, get them in trouble, make them lose their jobs, then move across the country to escape the chaos you created?"

She extended her arm, as if to stop me, touch me, but we were too far apart. "Eden, please—" There was a plea in her voice, a brittleness I'd never heard in it before.

It almost made me cave.

"Is this who you are underneath all this?" I motioned at the room at large, all the opulent touches—gold-plated diplomas and certificates of achievement, trophies, exquisite fabrics hanging from copper sconces.

Her face inflamed, and yet the timbre escaping her mouth was docile, too much so for me to recognize her. "I know what this looks like, but that's not it."

"What does it look like?" I set my fists on my hips, glowering at her. "That you're a liar, and a user. So if that's not the case, tell me what it is, then."

She shook her head and huffed. "It's...so I fell for a PA's charms once—"

I grunted. "Once?"

She snarled at me, her face reddening further. "Okay, twice, but it never happened before then, and it's not a pattern. It's a coincidence."

I chortled. "Coincidence? You had two PA's in your lifetime, supposedly, and you slept with both?"

"I've had more than two PA's," she said, voice tempered, but a flicker of frustration beneath its smooth surface. "And it didn't happen with any of them."

"Right." I let my arms dangle at my sides, tense and trembling. "And he started it? He came on to you? I remember you saying you were bad at resisting temptation."

She bit her lower lip, closing her eyes. "No, I won't lie." Her eyes popped open, striking, stilling me in place. "I came on to him, but he never refused. He accepted everything I gave him, never once complained. And then he took too much. He took advantage."

I cracked a malicious smile. "Took advantage of you? The one with money, power, glory?"

She sneered. "He lied to me. He tried to blackmail me out of that money, power, and glory. And fuck if I was going to let him. After everything I had to do to get here—" She cut herself off, groaning. "Ugh, I knew you'd react like this. That's why I didn't tell you before."

My jaw dropped. "You knew I'd feel targeted? Betrayed? Confused? Damn right I would, Silver. Damn right I'd be livid to discover all this. I thought the world of you, and then you tell me you're in fact nothing like who I pictured you to be."

She emitted a gasp and covered her mouth. "The...world?"

I scoffed. "Thought. Past tense. Now I only think that I was played. Taken for a fool. That I risked my job and livelihood for a fantasy that you'd never let me attain."

"We can't be together, Eden, I was clear on that." She lowered her hand; it was shaking.

"And I never doubted you were telling me the truth. But some minuscule fiber of me wanted you to be wrong." I spun from her as I sensed my eyes charging with tears. She didn't get to see me cry, not after this. "I wanted to hope you wanted me, not the idea of hot sex with yet another assistant."

"Eden," she said, her voice closer than before, approaching me.

I whipped around and thrust my arm out as she was about to touch my back. "No. Do not come near me."

She backed away, arms up in surrender. "I'm not evil. I'm not an asshole, okay? He was an awful person who was set out to abuse me; you...it's different with you."

I almost repeated what she'd said in a mocking tone but opted against being petty and immature. "You abused me."

Her features drained of color. "I did not abuse you. You consented to every bit of it, Eden."

"I did, yeah. But you made it seem like this was so forbidden, that you were incapable of holding back, that it had never happened before."

She tilted her head. "I never said that."

"No, but you implied it." I tipped my chin up to scowl at the ceiling. "You made me feel like I was this exception, when in fact you've done this before. It's your rhythm. Seduce your staff, get the fun you need out of them, then run away—"

She kicked the desk, bringing me to look at her again. "You are so out of line, Eden. Judging me on a past you know nothing about? How about I start digging into yours?"

I froze, ice slicing through my veins. "Again, it's you we're discussing here, not me."

"Had I known," she said, shrugging her fingers through her hair, "that night, at the bar? Had I known you'd be so dramatic, I'd have walked away and found someone else to fuck."

"Dramatic?" It took all my might not to breathe fire onto her. "Did you know that night?" I narrowed my gaze on her suddenly, new questions rising. "Did you know who I was? Your future employee?"

She gripped the edge of the desk, her eyebrows shooting up. "Did I know who you were? A sexy as fuck woman who spilled my drink on me in a crowded, stuffy, elite bar in downtown NYC? Way too chipper for her own good and irresistible? No, I absolutely did not. We didn't exchange names, remember?"

"We didn't." The longer I looked at her, the angrier I became.

And yet...and yet.

She'd lowered her guard today. She'd let me into a space she let no one else, confessing an awful truth about herself that showed her as human. Fucked-up, but human.

I tried to convince myself to forgive her. For the lie, for the games. Was it that big of a deal? So she slept with assistants; if they consented, why the hell not enjoy herself?

She needed me, and I needed this job. This argument was necessary to put us in our place. To break our attraction once and for all. To sever the sexual ties between us.

But while I wanted to rip her heart out, I also wanted to rip her clothes off. Still. Even as she admitted to me something terrible, something that revolted me...I was too infatuated with her body to fully hate her.

No, I didn't hate her; that was the problem.

"That night, I was...distraught." She slumped back into her chair, elbows on her knees to hold her head up. "I was trying to get him and our situation off my mind."

My heart pinched.

No, Eden, don't fall for it.

I inhaled, exhaled. "Do you still love him?"

Silver winced. "I never loved him." She gazed at me, a hint of something deep and deranged buried in her eyes. "It was purely physical. Carnal. We weren't careful. He wasn't careful. He tricked me, and we were caught, exposed, and grew to hate each other."

A part of me wanted to sit back down, listen, be her therapist for a moment. Not her scorned employee, not her disappointed, forbidden lover.

But sitting down showed I was accepting this, allowing this, and I wasn't ready for that.

"I moved so he wouldn't have to move. I hated him—hate him, still...and I didn't want to share the town with him, to risk bumping into him." She scratched at her chin. "I could afford to leave, he couldn't. So I'm here."

"You're here," I said, glancing at the doorway.

I didn't want to be here.

"He didn't deserve my kindness, Eden." Though I wasn't looking at her, I felt her eyes on me, burning, yearning for recognition. "You do. That's why I came clean. That's why you needed to know this."

"Thanks." I shook my head once, perked up, and signaled to the threshold. "You've said your piece, and now I need to digest it. I'm," I stumbled forward a few steps, "taking a walk."

Silver shot up. "You're on the clock—"

"Then I'm going on a break," I said, using air-quotes. "Try to stop me."