Whenever Chelsea drank anything, she left behind the faintest sheen on her cup. Be it lipstick or gloss. There was no such mark where Devlin had drunk from it, and that irked me enough to peer at the rim with addled eyes.
“What are you looking for?” he asked quietly.
“Your lip marks.”
His gaze softened, but he reached for the mug, took a sip, then pointed to it. “There. A kiss via tea.”
Even though I still felt groggy, I smiled at him and drank from that exact spot. “You make everything taste of chocolate.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible. And the drugs are supposed to be out of your system by now, so I don’t know if you’re just being romantic.” His brow waggled. “Didn’t I tell you Astleys weren’t romantic?”
“You also told me Astleys don’t stick around.”
He blinked. “Well, maybe I’m not as much of an Astley as I feared.”
I reached for his hand. “What happened? It’s all a daze.”
“I’m not surprised,” he muttered gruffly as he twisted our fingers together, making knots I felt not just in my knuckles but in my soul.
I needed those knots.
More than he could know.
“What do you remember?”
“Having my dick handled by a nurse. Being asked lots of questions. Getting blood taken, my mouth swabbed—” I shook my head. “I remember why, just not who.”
His mouth tightened. “I went to your office and found Rhode on top of you. She’d drugged you.”
“I think I remember that.” My brow puckered. “I remember the coffee tasting vile, and I remember waking up in the hospital and being prodded, then, it’s just one big blur.”
“She gave you something called a Roofagra.” His lips twisted, and a malevolent gleam appeared in his eyes that made my heart stutter. “A Roofie and Viagra combined. She’s no longer working for the company and is fighting the criminal charges.” He gritted his teeth. “There’s more, but you’re too tired to handle this.”
I wanted answers, but he was right. I was tired.
Really tired.
I’d just woken up but it still wasn’t enough.
It felt like I’d closed my eyes for a snapshot of time, only to be woken up again a minute later, but I knew that wasn’t possible.
I remembered Rhode giving me that coffee late at night, just as the sky was getting moody with twilight. Reds and oranges shot with purple as the day began to die.
But now, it had to be past noon. So high up in his building, there was no hiding from the many windows that revealed it was at least twelve hours since Rhode had doped me up.
“You probably feel worse because of the stomach flu,” he said softly, and I turned to him with sleepy eyes, focusing as he got to his feet, shrugged out of the hoodie as he walked around the bed to make it to the side where he usually slept—the left.
Beneath the hoodie, he wore a plain white tee which he also removed, then he clambered in beside me. Well, not beside me. He might as well have been across the room with how big the California King was. Except, he didn’t stay there. He moved closer to the center, edging nearer to me like he thought I had sharp fangs and would bite.
That was the last thing I felt like doing.
Instead, I made the final move even though my body ached with it, and I cut the space between us to a few inches. He was stilted at first, but then his arms swooped around me, and I burrowed into them, not stopping until I was flush against him, until there was no space at all and skin touched skin.
The confusion, the pain, the stress, the tension, it didn’t magically float away because he was there, but it was true what my grandmother had told me once—a problem shared really was a problem halved.
Twenty-Four
Devlin
I didn’t go into work for the next few days. Anything on my plate, I dealt with from the home office I never used even though it was fully kitted out for telecommuting.
Was it stupid to need to be close to him? Even if, after that first day, I could tell he didn’t really want me there?
He was quiet, withdrawn, tired, and on edge. Understandable, all of it, so I let him be, let him have some space and gave him the freedom of the apartment to come to terms with what happened.
When I’d started worrying about his safety, about him being mugged at a subway station, I hadn’t thought this would happen, and there was no not feeling guilty about this.
Robert Llewelyn had taken his own fucking life because HR had refused to listen to him, and even though I’d taken notice, the process of saving my company’s ass had taken precedence over the safety of my employees.
I deserved to be fucking lynched.
The thought had me clenching my teeth as I dove into work to try and offset my guilt. It didn’t work, of course. Not only had I put my workers in jeopardy, but Micah had paid for my mistakes as a result.
Micah, who was starting to mean much more to me than he should have after such a short space of time.
Micah, who I still didn’t have a fucking clue what to do with.
I felt emotionally crippled by my inaction and the subsequent tragedy that had ensued.
What Micah was going through right now was my fault. Astley Publishing’s fault. And that was what I couldn’t forgive.
The board had allowed that predator to stalk the halls of the Tower, to seek out her prey. We’d given her access to—
My hands balled into tight fists just as my cellphone buzzed. For a second, I ignored it, then when the notification popped up on my screen, I sighed and answered because ignoring calls from Lizzie was never advisable.
“Devlin, we’ve got a problem.”
“Music to my ears,” I said dryly, reaching up to rub a hand over my head, and encountering the damn stitches along the way.
I deserved more than a stapler to the cranium and a black eye for my pains, though.
Not just for Micah, but for Robert.
How Lizzie could bear to look at me, to work for me, while staying in the same fucking tower as Rhode was beyond me. The trouble was, apologies meant nothing when action was never taken. I’d already said sorry so many times, all without resolving anything. I was either incredibly lucky that she loved her job, or she simply couldn’t afford to leave. And with her salary, health benefits, and pension, I knew it was that more than anything else.
Which was less of a punch to the gut and more of a herniated disc—excruciating to accept, devastating to realize.
“I’m sending you a link. Open it,” she said briskly, but her tone was no different than the thousand other times she’d called me to offset a crisis. Did she loathe me? How could I blame her? Even doing everything I could, the law and legalities had prevented me from doing what was right. “I’ve got Kirkland on it, but the board are already grumbling about an emergency meeting. Nothing concrete yet, but I’d expect to be hauled in tonight.”
Frowning, I clicked on the link, and what I saw had my already soaring blood pressure shooting into limbo.
“The lawyers are already on it. It won’t make the print edition,” she soothed before I could say a damn word.
Astley HEIR ASSAULTS BELOVED NYC SOCIALITE
If the headline wasn’t atrocious enough, that was nothing to the pictures splashed all over the fucking front page of the website, with, I saw, more promised.