Chapter 2: The boardroom play
The click of the boardroom door closing behind him was the loudest sound David had ever heard. It sealed him in with the consequence of his choice. Eight pairs of eyes looked up from the table, a mixture of curiosity and mild concern. Henderson’s brow was furrowed.
“Everything alright, David? You look peaked.”
“Fine, Bill. Just a… a sudden wave of nausea. Passed now.” David’s voice was smoother than he felt. He took his seat, avoiding the empty space where Jessica’s gaze burned into the side of his face. He focused on the spreadsheet projected on the wall, the neat grids a mockery of the chaos inside him.
For five minutes, he managed. He contributed a comment about liquidity ratios, his mind a split screen: one half analyzing debt structures, the other screaming she knows, she knows, she knows. The phantom scent of jasmine and musk from the hallway clung to him, a ghost in his nostrils.
Then, beneath the table, her hand found his knee.
This wasn’t the tentative exploration of before. This was ownership. Her palm was warm, certain. It rested there for a moment, a claiming. David’s blood, which had just begun to settle, roared back to a boil. He kept his eyes fixed on Lena, who was talking about brand sentiment.
Jessica’s hand began to move. A slow, deliberate slide up his thigh. He could feel every ridge of her knuckles through the wool. His body locked, a statue of conflicting impulses. Stop her. Push her away. Stand up and fire her on the spot.
He did nothing.
Her fingers arrived at the aching tightness in his trousers. She didn’t grab, not at first. She traced the outline of him with a single, insolent fingertip, following the length from base to tip. A mapmaker charting conquered territory. David sucked in a sharp, silent breath. The numbers on the screen blurred into grey static.
“The focus groups in Berlin were particularly receptive to the sustainability angle,” Michael from Legal was saying, his voice tinny and far away.
Jessica’s hand settled over him, cupping him fully. The heat of her palm was a brand. She squeezed, gently at first, then with increasing pressure. He was painfully, mortifyingly hard. A quiet, ragged sigh escaped him, lost under the hum of the air conditioning.
Her thumb found the head of his cock through the fabric and began to rub. Slow, circular motions. A parody of comfort. A dedicated act of ruin. David’s hands gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles blanched white against the dark wood. He was trembling, a fine, constant vibration he hoped wasn’t visible. Sweat trickled down his spine, icy despite the heat flooding his core.
She varied her touch. Sometimes a firm, stroking pressure along his length. Sometimes that maddening, focused rotation of her thumb. She timed it to the discussion. A stroke when Henderson made a emphatic point. A squeeze when a contentious figure was mentioned. She was conducting him, a silent, obscene orchestra leader pulling ragged breaths and clenched jaws from her instrument.
He couldn’t speak. Words were beyond him. Language had dissolved into a primitive code of sensation and panic. When someone direct a question his way, he managed a grunt, a nod, a strained “Proceed as discussed.” It was enough. They assumed he was deep in thought, scrutinizing the data. He was, in a way. He was scrutinizing the edge of his own sanity, feeling it fray under her relentless, hidden hand.
The meeting stretched into an eternity of exquisite torture. Forty-five minutes. An hour. Her grip never faltered. Once, when he shifted slightly, trying to alleviate the building, unbearable pressure, her fingers dug in harder, a warning and a promise. Stay still. This is mine.
He thought of Sara. He tried to summon her face, the sound of her laughter. It was like trying to recall a dream upon waking; the details melted under the immediate, visceral reality of Jessica’s thumb pressing just so. The guilt was still there, but it had transformed. It was no longer a sharp stab, but a heavy, sick blanket smothering him from the inside, even as his body arched infinitesimally into her touch.
He was a bystander in his own skin. He watched, horrified and enthralled, as his hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk against her hand.
She felt it. Her own breath hitched, a tiny, victorious catch he alone was tuned to hear. She rewarded him with a long, slow stroke that had his eyes slamming shut for a three-count. When he opened them, Henderson was looking at him.
“Long week, David?”
“The longest,” David rasped, and it was the truest thing he’d said all day.
Finally, blessedly, the meeting concluded. Action items were assigned. Chairs scraped back. As the others began to stand, gathering pads and phones, Jessica’s hand gave him one last, firm squeeze that bordered on painful, then withdrew, slipping away as silently as it had come.
The absence of her touch was a shock. He felt cold, empty, and throbbing with unmet need. He adjusted his suit jacket, using the movement to hide his condition as he stood. He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He mumbled something about a conference call and almost fled the room, his walk stiff and unnatural.
The rest of the day was a haze of agony. Every nerve ending felt raw, exposed. He canceled his afternoon appointments, citing a migraine. He sat in his office with the lights off, staring at the skyline, the ghost of her hand imprinted on him. He was a live wire, sparking and dangerous. He drove home mechanically, the car feeling like a foreign vessel.
Sara was in the garden, kneeling by a flower bed. She smiled up at him, her face smudged with dirt. “You’re home early. Everything okay?”
“Just a headache. Needed quiet,” he said, bending to kiss her cheek. The scent of earth and flowers on her skin was a profound reproach. He felt filthy.
“You work too hard,” she said, squeezing his hand. Her touch was gentle, loving. It made him want to weep.
He showered that night for twenty minutes, scrubbing his skin until it was red, as if he could wash away the memory of her fingerprints. It was futile. He lay beside Sara’s sleeping form, staring at the ceiling, his body humming with a frustrated, shameful energy. He had crossed a line. Not a physical one, perhaps, but a line of will. He had allowed it. He had, in his silence, in his stillness, consented. The threshold was behind him. There was no going back.
The next morning, a different kind of tension gripped him. It was no longer just about resistance. It was a dreadful, hungry anticipation. He dressed with deliberate care, his mind a warzone. End this. Today. Walk in, terminate her employment, cite a restructuring. Clean. Surgical. Another voice, lower and insistent, whispered: See what happens.
The meeting was in the main boardroom. A quarterly review, packed with fifteen department heads and their analysts. A three-hour marathon. Jessica was already there when he entered, seated near the middle of the long table. She wore a cream-colored silk shell and a navy blazer. Professional. Demure, even. Her hair was in a severe ponytail. She looked like the most efficient, innocent person in the world. She met his eyes and gave a small, polite smile. Nothing more.
Maybe, he thought, a desperate hope flaring, maybe yesterday was the peak. Maybe she’s made her point.
The hope died the moment he took his seat at the head of the table. As the room settled, as the first presenter booted up their laptop, Jessica casually reached for a pitcher of water in the center. As she leaned forward, her hand, hidden by the angle, dropped below the table. It didn’t fumble or search. It went straight to his hand, which rested on his own thigh.
Her fingers were cool from the pitcher. They slid between his, locking tight. Then, with a terrifying certainty, she pulled his hand across the gulf of space between their chairs, under the cover of the table, and placed it directly on her bare upper thigh.
The silk of her skirt was taut. Her skin was burning hot. David’s heart hammered against his ribs. This was more brazen, more dangerous than yesterday. They were closer together, but there were more people, more lines of sight. His mind short-circuited. Pull away. Pull away now.
But his hand stayed. It was as if her flesh was magnetic. The memory of her wetness from the first time, that shocking, secret slickness, flooded back, a sensory echo that made his mouth water.
She let go of his wrist. Her hand returned to the tabletop, picking up a pen. She began taking notes.
His hand was on her leg. Under the table. In a room full of his employees.
The presentation began, a drone about IT infrastructure. David stared blankly at the presenter. All his awareness was channeled into his fingertips. The smooth skin. The incredible heat. The faint tremor he felt in her muscle.
Then, subtly, she parted her knees. Just an inch. An invitation. A command.
His fingers, acting on an instinct older than reason, slid inward. The hem of her skirt was no barrier. He found the hot, damp seam of her. Just as before. But this time, she was already wet. Soaking. The slick heat greeted his probing fingers like a sigh.
A quiet, broken sound left his lips. He disguised it as a cough, turning his head. No one noticed.
His index finger slipped inside her.
It was effortless. She was open, ready. The hot, clenching velvet of her inner muscles welcomed him. He was inside her. In the boardroom. His vision tunneled. The sound of the projector fan became a white noise roar.
He didn’t move. He was frozen, stunned by the intimacy, the absolute lewdness of the act. His finger was buried in her, a secret so profound it felt like it must be visible, glowing through the mahogany.
Jessica shifted in her seat, a tiny, deliberate movement. It was all the instruction he needed.
He began to move his finger. A shallow, experimental stroke. Her breath hitched. He saw her knuckles whiten around her pen. On the surface, she was the picture of concentration, her eyes on the slides. Under the table, she was being fingered by her billionaire boss.
Something broke in David then. The last vestige of his control, the final thread of his resistance, snapped with a silent, internal ping. The guilt, the fear, the morality—it all dissolved in the face of this raw, electrical feedback. He could feel her response in the clutch of her body, in the fresh gush of wetness that coated his finger. It was a power greater than any boardroom vote, a validation more potent than any stock price surge.
He added a second finger.
She accommodated him easily, greedily. He began to stroke in earnest, finding a rhythm. In and out. Curling upward. He remembered what she liked, what he’d discovered in that first, frantic encounter. He did it now, methodically, relentlessly. This was no longer something she was doing to him. This was something he was doing to her. The shift in dynamic was intoxicating.
Her professional facade began to crack. A flush crept up her neck, staining her throat. She bit her lower lip, her note-taking becoming scribbles. Once, when he curled his fingers just right, her hips gave a tiny, helpless buck against his hand. He felt the internal flutter, the first tremors of her climax building.
He didn’t stop. He was a man possessed. The three-hour meeting became a single, sustained act of covert depravity. He fingered her through a presentation on supply chain logistics. He worked her through a heated debate about marketing budgets, his own voice occasionally joining the fray, sounding calm and authoritative even as his wrist moved in a hidden, filthy rhythm. He brought her to the edge during a discussion of pension fund allocations, then slowed his pace, drawing it out, denying her release with a cruelty he didn’t know he possessed.
She was trembling continuously now. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on her temple. Her ponytail was coming loose. She was gripping the edge of the table with her free hand, her knuckles bone-white.
“—and so the projected ROI, while initially conservative, shows significant upside potential in year three,” droned the head of Finance.
David pressed the heel of his hand against her, applying firm pressure, and scissored his fingers inside her.
Jessica’s body went rigid. A choked, silent gasp strangled in her throat. Her inner muscles convulsed around his fingers in a series of rapid, desperate flutters. Her climax was utterly silent, a volcanic eruption contained within the perfect, still shell of her body. He felt it all: the pulsating contractions, the hot rush, the way her thigh muscles turned to stone and then to jelly. He kept his fingers moving, milking the sensation from her, watching as her head drooped slightly, as her eyes glazed over, staring sightlessly at the pie chart on the screen.
She came down slowly, her breathing ragged but silent. He didn’t withdraw. He left his fingers inside her, feeling the aftershocks. The meeting plowed on. Twenty minutes passed.
He began again. Slower now, more torturous. He was exploring, learning her. He found a spot that made her jerk. He focused on it. Her breathing, which had just evened out, became sharp and shallow again. She was more sensitive now, every touch amplified. Her second climax built faster, a rising wave of tension he could feel coiling in her abdomen. When it broke, it was less violent but deeper. A long, shuddering release that left her limp against his hand. A single, perfect drop of sweat traced a path from her hairline down her neck and disappeared into the collar of her silk shell.
He was relentless. A third time, as the meeting was finally, blessedly, winding to a close. This one was slower, a drawn-out crescendo that had her pressing her thighs together, trapping his hand, her body bowing subtly in her seat. Her orgasm was a series of long, sweet shudders that seemed to go on forever. He felt utterly drained, spent by proxy, yet more alive than he could remember ever feeling.
“Alright, people. Let’s wrap this up. Action items will be circulated by end of day.” David’s own voice sounded alien to him, cool and dismissive. The room erupted into the chatter of conclusion, chairs pushing back, papers shuffling.
Under the table, he slowly, reluctantly, withdrew his fingers. They were slick, glistening in the shadowed space. The scent of her, potent and intimate, rose to him. He discreetly wiped his hand on the napkin under his water glass.
He dared to look at her. Jessica was slowly gathering her things, her movements languid, sated. The severe ponytail was now a chaotic mess. Her cream silk blouse clung to her skin, damp with sweat. The professional mask was utterly shattered. She looked thoroughly, devastatingly fucked. Her green eyes met his. They were dark, heavy-lidded, glowing with a feline satisfaction.
She stood, smoothing her skirt. She picked up her tablet and folio. As she passed his chair, she leaned down, as if to retrieve a fallen pen. Her lips brushed his ear, her voice a raw, hoarse whisper.
“See?” she breathed, the word saturated with triumph. “Surrender has its perks.”
Then she straightened up and walked, unsteadily but with undeniable victory, out of the boardroom. She didn’t look back.
David remained seated, long after the room had emptied. He stared at his hand, then brought his fingertips to his nose, closing his eyes. The scent was confirmation, condemnation, and creed all at once.
He was no longer struggling between control and surrender.
The war was over. She had won. And the terrifying, exhilarating truth was, as he sat alone in the silent, empty room, he felt like he had won something, too.
And the terrifying, exhilarating truth was, as he sat alone in the silent, empty room, he felt like he had won something, too. The victory was hollow, poisoned, and it tasted of her. He stayed there for twenty minutes, breathing in the stale, perfumed air, until the cleaning crew’s cart rattled past the door. The sound jerked him back into his body, into the reality of his tailored suit and his Rolex and the dried, tacky residue on his fingers.
He stood, his joints stiff. He walked to the private washroom adjoining his office. He didn’t turn on the main light, just the muted LED over the marble sink. The water was shockingly cold. He scrubbed his hands with the expensive, lemongrass-scented soap, watching the lather bloom white and disappear down the drain. He scrubbed until his skin was pink and raw. He looked at himself in the dim mirror. His eyes were dark, the lines around them seeming deeper. He didn’t recognize the man staring back. That man looked hungry. And satisfied.
The drive home was a blur of brake lights and honking. He kept flexing his right hand on the steering wheel, feeling a phantom tightness in his fingers. He remembered the specific, fluttering pulse of her final climax. The memory was a brand. His phone buzzed in the console. A text from Sara.
Running late at the garden center. Can you grab the chicken from the fridge and start it at 375? Love you.
The domesticity of it felt like a slap. Love you. He typed back Sure. He didn’t add the sentiment. It would have felt like a lie sprayed over a crime scene.
The house was too quiet. He turned on the oven, fumbled with the oven dial. He pulled the tray of chicken and vegetables from the fridge, her neat handwriting on the parchment paper: 375, 45 mins. He put it in, set the timer. The ordinariness of the actions were a kind of torture. He poured a bourbon, neat, and took it to his study, closing the door. He didn’t turn on the lights. He sat in his leather chair, in the dark, and drank.
The liquor didn’t calm him. It just sharpened the images. Jessica’s bowed head. The sweat on her throat. The absolute silence of her pleasure in a room full of noise. He finished the glass. The timer went off in the kitchen, a cheerful, insistent beep. He jumped.
Sara arrived as he was pulling the tray out. Her arms were full of purple hydrangeas. “They were on sale! Isn’t this color incredible?” She bustled in, placing the plastic pot on the counter, leaning in to kiss him. Her lips were cool. She smelled of sunshine and potting soil. “Long day? You seem a million miles away.”
“Just numbers,” he said, his voice too gruff. “Market’s volatile.”
“Well, leave it at the office. Dinner smells good.” She moved around the kitchen, fetching plates, her movements fluid and familiar. He watched her, this woman he’d shared a life with for over two decades. He knew the tiny chip in her favorite ceramic bowl. He knew the way she hummed when she was content. A vast, cavernous loneliness opened inside him. He was separated from her by a glass wall a mile thick. On his side, it was all sweat-slick skin and silent, shuddering releases. On hers, it was hydrangeas and roasted chicken.
“How was the garden center?” he asked, forcing himself into the moment.
“Oh, you know. Overpriced. But therapeutic.” She smiled, serving the food. “I talked to Ben earlier. He’s thinking of coming home for a week in July.”
“That’s great,” David said, the words automatic. His son’s face floated in his mind, a beloved ghost. What would he think of the man his father had become today? The shame was a cold, heavy stone in his gut. He pushed food around his plate.
“You’re not eating.”
“Not very hungry.”
She studied him, her gaze softening with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been… distant lately.”
“I’m fine, Sara. Just tired. The pressure of this new merger.” It was the go-to excuse, and she accepted it, nodding, but the concern didn’t leave her eyes.
He went to bed early, claiming exhaustion. He lay beside her, listening to her breathing even out into sleep. He stared at the ceiling. His body was exhausted but his mind raced on a hamster wheel of degradation and glory. He replayed every second, every sensation. The triumph he’d felt was curdling, turning into a sick, addictive need. It wasn’t enough. The memory was already fading, becoming a story he’d told himself. He needed the proof. Again.
Sleep, when it came, was fractured and hot. He dreamed of boardrooms that turned into lush, damp jungles. He dreamed of his hand covered in ink that wouldn’t wash off.
The next morning, the routine was a grim parade. Gym.Shower. Knot the tie. Kiss Sara. The drive to the tower felt like a condemned man’s journey. His body was a conduit of anticipation, every nerve firing in direction of her. He took the private elevator straight to the fiftieth floor. His assistant, Martin, a perpetually anxious man in his thirties, was at his desk.
“Good morning, Mr. Sterling. Your nine-thirty was pushed to ten. Jessica is already in your office, going over the Frankfurt correspondence. She said it was urgent.”
David’s heart gave a hard, painful thud. “Fine.”
He pushed through the heavy oak door. She was at his desk. His desk. She was sitting in his chair, leaned back, one high-heeled shoe dangling from her toe. She was reading a hardcopy report. She didn’t look up.
“The Germans are being difficult about clause 7-B,” she said, as if they’d been in mid-conversation. “Their counsel is arguing it creates an unfair liability cascade. I’ve highlighted the problematic language.”
He closed the door softly behind him. The room was immense, all glass and steel and spectacular, empty views. It felt like a cage. “Get out of my chair.”
She finally looked up. Her gaze was cool, appraising. There were shadows under her eyes. She looked as sleepless as he felt. “Or what?”
He didn’t have an answer. The “or what” was a fire he had no intention of putting out. He walked to the window, his back to her, looking out at the city he supposedly commanded. He heard the gentle creak of leather as she stood. He didn’t hear her approach, but he felt the change in the air. Her perfume, different today—darker, spicier—wrapped around him before she did.
Her hands slid around his waist from behind. Her cheek pressed between his shoulder blades. The contact was so intimate, so disarmingly gentle, it froze him more completely than any bold move could have.
“You were incredible yesterday,” she whispered, her voice vibrating through his back. “I’ve never… not like that. Not in a room like that.”
The admission stunned him. It was vulnerability, a crack in her armor of control. He didn’t turn. He couldn’t. If he saw her face, he’d be lost.
“This has to stop,” he said, the words as empty as the skyline before him.
“No, it doesn’t.” Her hands flattened against his stomach, then began to move downward, tracing the line of his belt. “It just has to evolve. We can’t keep using boardrooms. It’s amateur hour.”
He barked a laugh, the sound harsh in the quiet room. “Amateur hour? What would you call professional, Jessica? A shareholders’ meeting?”
“Privacy,” she said simply. Her fingers found the buckle of his belt. The metallic snick was obscenely loud. “Control. The ability to take our time.” She undid the button of his trousers, then the zipper. Her hand slipped inside, past the waistband of his boxers. Her touch was cool and direct. He was already hard for her. He hated his body’s instant, traitorous betrayal.
“Someone could walk in,” he managed, but it was a weak protest, his body arching back into her.
“Martin won’t. He’s terrified of you. The door is locked.” She began to stroke him, her grip perfect, knowing. “This is what you want. What you’ve been thinking about since you left that room. Since you washed your hands and tried to scrub me off.”
He couldn’t deny it. His head fell back against her shoulder. He watched, detached, as her hand moved under the fabric of his open trousers, a hidden, rhythmic motion. Her other hand splayed across his chest, holding him to her. He was fully dressed, looking every inch the titan of industry, while being jerked off by his assistant.
“Tell me you want it,” she murmured into his ear.
He remained silent, jaw clenched.
“Tell me, David. Or I stop.” Her hand stilled, a devastating threat.
A groan was torn from him. “I want it.”
“What do you want?”
“This.”
“Not enough.” Her hand withdrew completely. The loss was a physical pain.
He turned in her arms then, finally facing her. Her expression was fierce, hungry. She’d won again, and they both knew it. He cupped her face, his thumbs rough against her cheekbones. “I want you. Here. Now.”
It was all the permission she needed. She pushed his suit jacket off his shoulders. It fell to the floor in a heap of bespoke wool. She shoved him back until his legs hit the edge of his broad, minimalist desk. Pens scattered. A crystal paperweight rolled and thumped to the carpet.
“Then have me,” she said, and hooked her fingers into the waist of her skirt, shimmying it down her hips along with her underwear. She kicked them away. She was bare, pale and lush in the grey morning light. She hopped up onto the desk, sending a stack of folders sliding. She leaned back on her elbows, watching him, her green eyes blazing with challenge. “No hiding now. No table. Just me.”
He was on her in a heartbeat. He pushed her knees apart, his hands gripping her thighs. He didn’t kiss her. This wasn’t about affection. This was about consumption. He positioned himself and drove into her in one savage, deep thrust.
She cried out, a sharp, unfiltered sound that echoed off the glass walls. Her head fell back, her back arching off the desk. She was wet and tight and she clenched around him instantly, a visceral welcome. He set a punishing pace, each thrust rocking her body back into the hard wood. The desk shuddered. A monitor wobbled. He didn’t care. He was chasing the phantom feeling from yesterday, trying to make it real, trying to own it completely.
“Yes,” she hissed, her nails digging into his forearms through his shirt. “Just like that. God, David.”
Her use of his first name, here, in this context, shattered something else. He wrapped an arm around her back, hauling her up into a sitting position on the edge of the desk, still buried deep inside her. Her legs wrapped around his hips, locking him in. They were chest to chest, breathing each other’s air. He could see every fleck of gold in her irises, every pore. Her lipstick was smudged.
“Who owns this?” he growled, the words ripped from a place he didn’t recognize.
“You do,” she gasped, her hips rolling to meet his.
“Say it again.”
“You own it. You own me.” The words were a lie and a truth. She was using him as much as he was using her, but in this molten moment, the distinction didn’t exist. It was all collision.
He kissed her then. It was brutal, teeth and tongue and desperation. She kissed him back with equal ferocity. The taste of her was coffee and ambition and sex. His climax built like a storm surge, fast and unstoppable. He tore his mouth from hers, burying his face in the crook of her neck as he came, his body shuddering violently. He held her so tight it must have hurt. She clung to him, her own cries muffled against his shoulder, her inner muscles pulsing around him as she followed him over.
For a long minute, they stayed like that, fused together, panting. The sound of their breathing was the only thing in the vast, silent office. The reality of what they’d just done began to seep in, cold and inexorable. He was inside her. On his desk. In his office. In the middle of a workday.
Slowly, he pulled away. He adjusted his clothing with trembling hands, turning his back to her to zip his trousers, buckle his belt. He heard the soft rustle as she slipped off the desk, the whisper of fabric as she pulled her skirt back on. He didn’t turn around until he was fully composed, his suit jacket back on. When he did, she was standing there, straightening her silk top. Her hair was a wild, beautiful mess. She looked at him, and for a fleeting second, he saw something like uncertainty in her eyes. It was gone in a blink, replaced by the familiar, cool confidence.
“The Frankfurt correspondence,” she said, her voice only slightly unsteady. She picked up the report she’d been reading, held it out. “Page four. The problematic clause.”
He took the document. Their fingers didn’t touch. He stared at the highlighted text, the words just meaningless glyphs.
“I’ll draft a rebuttal,” she said. She walked to the door, her heels clicking on the hardwood with a strange finality. She paused, her hand on the knob. She didn’t look back. “The next board meeting is Thursday. In the main auditorium. Rows of seats. No tables.”
She left, closing the door with a quiet, definitive click.
David stood alone in the wreckage of his office, of his life. The scent of sex and her perfume hung heavy in the air. He looked at his desk, the surface now empty where she had lain. He walked over, placed his palms flat on the cool wood. He could still feel the ghost of her warmth.
He had crossed every line. There was no threshold left. He was on the other side now, in a landscape with no rules, no maps. The exhilaration was gone, burned away in the raw, immediate aftermath. All that was left was a cold, clear understanding.
This was his life now. This clandestine war was his new empire. And as he looked out over the city, he knew, with a chilling certainty, that he would do it again. Thursday. The auditorium. Rows of seats.No tables.
The game had changed. The stakes had vanished, because he had nothing left to lose. He had given it all away, piece by piece, in silent boardrooms and on this very desk. And the most horrifying part, the part that made his stomach turn even as a flicker of heat rekindled in his gut, was that he didn’t want it back.