Of course he does.
I step back, because I already told the lobby to let him up, and I’m not going to stand in the doorway and be rude.
“Okay,” I say, and my voice is tight. “Come in.”
He steps past me, and my apartment suddenly feels too small for him. Too intimate. Too full of my life. I close the door behind him, and the click is loud.
I lead him toward the living area, my stocking feet silent on the floor, my gym clothes suddenly feeling like a mistake I can’t fix. I’m painfully aware of the candles, the cracked window, the faint scent of citrus cleaner I used in a panic.
He takes everything in with one sweep of his eyes and doesn’t comment. ThankGod.
I stop near the couch and turn to him, folding my arms over my chest because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.
“Can I get you anything?” I ask, the question automatic.
His gaze flicks to my face, then away, like he’s trying not to look too long. “No.”
Silence stretches between us.
My mind is a mile a minute—why is he here, why now, what does he want, is this about the deal, is this about me—until I can’t stand it anymore.
I move first, because if I don’t, I’m going to start pacing like a lunatic. I sit on the couch, not sinking into it, just perching on the edge as if I might bolt.
I look up at him.
“Antonio,” I say, and I hear the edge in it, the strain I can’t quite hide. “What are you doing here?”
Antonio doesn’t waste time.
“Have you met with the Bellandis again?”
I frown, the question so far from anything I expected that it doesn’t register.
“What?” I ask because my brain is still catching up. Still trying to figure out why that name is in his mouth at all. “The Bellandis—" I tighten my grip on my own knee. “That’s not an answer. How do you even know about that?”
Antonio exhales and sits down beside me, close enough that the cushion dips, close enough that the familiar scent of him hits me all at once—clean cologne, heat, the ghost of a memory I don’t want.
For one humiliating second, my body wants to lean in.
Then I see his face.
He’s not here to flirt. He’s not here to charm. He’s looking at me like this matters more than anything we’ve said to each other since that meeting.
“We’ve been keeping track of the competition,” he says.
“You’ve been keeping track of the competition? In the acquisition?” My mouth tightens. “That’s classified information.”
He gives a small, humorless huff. “We have our ways.”
“Antonio,” I say, voice sharpening, “I can’t discuss another company with you. I can’t discuss— any of it. And if that’s the reason you came all the way here—”
I push forward, starting to stand.
He reaches out and catches my arm, and guides me back down like he’s afraid I’ll bolt if he lets me get upright.
“That’s not why I came,” he says.
I yank my arm back, but I don’t moveaway.