The convention center smelled like coffee, carpet cleaner, and ambition.
I adjusted the strap of my laptop bag as I walked toward the ballroom, skimming my notes for the third time. The talk was solid. I knew it was. I’d given versions of it a dozen times before. Outcomes, funding, projections. Calm. Controlled.
My phone vibrated.
I did my best to ignore it, but two steps later, it vibrated again.
So I stopped walking, and against my better judgment, I glanced down.
Anya:
I miss you.
Something warm and sharp twisted low in my abdomen. I exhaled through my nose, steadying myself, already smiling despite my best efforts.
I typed back as I resumedwalking.
Desmond:
I’m about to walk into a keynote.
But I miss you too.
Her response came almost instantly.
Anya:
I know.
My phone buzzed again before I had the chance to pocket it.
Anya:
Anya Volkov has sent you an image
I slowed. Stopped again, looking around as if I were about to commit a crime. Then I opened the message. And my fucking brain stalled.
Blood rushed south with absolutely no regard for professionalism. My jaw tightened. I straightened my shoulders as though posture alone might fix this.
She was lying on her bed, head thrown back somewhere, one hand groping herbaretit, with her other hand shoved down into a tiny pair of lacy panties. With her back arched and her socked feet crossed, it seemed very likely that she wastryingto kill me.
Fuck.
I typed with my thumb, brisk and furious and not atallturned on.
Desmond:
Anya.
I need this phone for my talks. You can’t send these things to me.
I shoved the phone into my pocket and forced myself forward, counting my steps, focusing on anything except the sudden awareness of my own body.
Podium. Lights. Applause.
My phone buzzed again.
I didnotcheck it. What I did do was clip the microphone to my collar, adjust it, and felt a flash of something unhelpful as I remembered exactly where my mind had gone just moments earlier.