The micro-shift in his posture gave him away—barely there, barely noticeable—but I didn’t miss things like that. Men like him weren’t used to being handled.
Good.
I stepped closer. Only enough to make the point. “You don’t get to touch her,” I snarled. “You don’t get to speak to her like that.”
He understood exactly what I was doing. I let the silence stretch a fraction longer than it should have. Let it settle. Let it press.
“If you try it again—” I paused, not because I needed to, but because he did. Because I wanted him to feel the spacewhere the rest of that sentence lived before I gave it to him. “—I won’t hold back.”
Rawlings held my stare. Long enough to make it look like he had a choice in how this went.
I watched the calculation happen anyway—watched him weigh it, measure it, decide what version of himself he was going to walk away with.
Then—he smiled. Tight. “Noted,” he choked.
I held him there a second longer. Just to make sure.
Then I let go.
Rawlings adjusted his jacket like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just been handled in a room full of people who would never know it.
Char didn’t move. Didn’t blink. If anything, she looked… entertained. Like she’d just watched something mildly interesting happen in the background of a night that didn’t challenger her.
Didn’t linger to see what Rawlings did next. Didn’t give him the chance to recover ground.
I turned—and she was already moving.
Her hand caught my wrist first. “Marcher,” telling me to walk under her breath.
I let her pull me through the crowd, through the noise, through the polished nothing of the room until the air shifted again—quieter, tighter, less curated.
“What the hell was that?” Bea snapped, turning on me fast enough that the movement cut through the space between us. “I didn’t need you to do that.”
I held her gaze.
“You shouldn’t have been there.”
Her hand came up—fast, sharp—fisting in the front of my jacket before I could move. “Stop,” she snapped. “Stop acting like I need?—”
I was already done with the conversation. That’s when it broke.
Her grip tightened. And then—she shoved me.
Enough to send me back a step—through a door behind me.
Into dark.
Into fabric and dust and heat that didn’t belong to the rest of the building.
Her back hit the coats, her green dress a sigh against them. Her hands shoved hard against my chest.
“You had no right,” she hissed, the words a hot blade in the crack of light.
I filled the space, my gaze a cold fire. “He was threatening your job.”
“And I was winning! I don’t need you to step in. I don’t need you to claim me in front of two of my bosses.” Her breath came in quick, shallow pulls. The green silk shone faintly over the curve of her chest. “You performative brute.”
I could feel her heart beating a frantic rhythm against my chest. My body knew every inch of her frame pinned there.