"Miles. You're breaking up with me in a stairwell."
I don't answer. My jaw is clenched so tight my teeth ache. The coffee he brought me is sitting on the step between us, going cold.
"Okay." Ray pushes off the railing and stands up straight. "Okay, no. You don't get to do this." He isn't angry. It's worse than angry — he's steady. Certain. "You don't get to rehearse a speech and deliver it at me like I'm a client you're firing."
"This is the appropriate—"
"Last night you were in my bed." He says it simply. Not as ammunition. As fact. "You ate my pasta and you laughed at my garlic bread and you fell asleep with your hand in mine. That was twelve hours ago."
"I'm aware of the timeline."
"Then what changed between my bed and this stairwell?"
Richard's office. The word resolved. The partnership I've spent my entire adult life earning, handed to me with a price tag attached. But I can't say any of that in a way that sounds like the truth, because it isn't the truth. It's the excuse, and Ray can smell the difference.
"The situation was always unsustainable," I say instead. "I should have ended it sooner. I didn't, and that's my responsibility, but—"
"You asked for me." He steps closer. "The Whitfield case. You went to Richard and asked to have me on it. You did that after the conference. After everything. Why would you do that if you were planning to end it?"
"It was a professional—"
"Stop." Sharp now, finally, cutting through my rehearsed language like a blade. "Stop saying professional. You're nottalking to HR, Miles. You're talking to me. The person who was holding you last night."
"I know who I'm talking to."
"Then talk to ME. Not at me." He's close enough now that I can feel the warmth of him, and my body is screaming toward it and I'm holding so still my muscles are cramping. "What is the real reason?"
"I've told you—"
"You've told me what you practiced in the mirror. I want the real thing."
"This IS the real thing. The firm—"
"You don't give a shit about the firm." He breaks slightly and catches it and puts it back together. "You never have. You give a shit about proving something, and I used to think it was about the partnership, but it's not. It's something else. It's been something else this whole time and you won't tell me what it is."
He's too close. He's too close and he sees too much and I'm running out of walls and the professional language is useless against someone who's heard me say his name in the dark.
"We can't do this," I say, and my voice is thinner now. The rehearsed version is crumbling. "You're twenty-three. You have—"
"Don't." He almost laughs. Almost. "Don't do the noble sacrifice thing. Don't act like you're protecting me."
"I am protecting you."
"From what?"
The question hangs in the landing. From what. From me. From a bond that leads nowhere. From an omega whose body is a beautiful, elaborate lie — heats and slick and need and all of it pointing toward a future that doesn't exist.
"From what, Miles?"
"From me," I say, and my voice doesn't sound right anymore. Too raw. Too close to what I've never let anyone see.
He steps forward. I step back. My shoulder blades hit the wall. He keeps coming, and I could tell him to stop but I don't, and then he's kissing me.
Not gentle. Not careful. Desperate and angry and honest in a way that words stopped being ten minutes ago. His mouth on mine saying feel this, I'm here, stop running, please just stop.
I kiss him back.
I grab his shirt and pull and my mouth opens and for one second I stop holding the door shut and the flood comes through. The pre-bond surges — relief so sharp it's like pain, every nerve singing YES, pulling him closer, my teeth on his lip, his arm around my waist and the feeling of being held and choosing to be held and—