After two hours, I was starting to think Marianne and Damon had stuck me in the only room without a glass door so I was out of sight, out of mind.

Sweat collected at the nape of my neck. This closet had the tiniest air vent in the world and a crap signal.

Well, I wasn’t going to sit in a closet all day. I was more than a bartering chip for the merger. If Damon couldn’t find me any work, I would sniff some out myself.

Nothing caught my eye on the main floor, so I slunk over to a conference room, where a bunch of people wrote on white boards on each wall. Brainstorming! That was my scene! What was the topic? I squinted to read from a distance and reached for the door handle.

A strong grip around my elbow pulled me back. I whirled around, only to smack right into Damon’s chest.

“What are you doing, scoping the place out?” he demanded.

“For what, a bank job?” I arched an eyebrow and pulled out of his grip. “I’m not some double agent memorizing floor plans. I work here, remember? I’m supposed to manage!”

He leveled me with an even gaze. “You have a photographic memory. That’s quite an asset. And a threat.”

“Good thing I’m on your side, then.”

After a moment, Damon nodded and turned around. “I’ll take you back. But please don’t meddle with other people’s projects. It disrupts the workflow.”

I crossed my arms and followed him back to the closet. “Do you have any work for me yet? Or am I just expected to sweat?”

He let himself in–rude—and rifled through the contents of the shelves. “I’ll get you set up with a fan. Just don’t go wandering around again.”

“What are you going to do, lock me in here?”

“That’s ridiculous, I can’t do that,” he scoffed, plugging in the fan. Sparks burst from the power strip and the electronics flared before engulfing us in darkness.

Were most people’s first days as chaotic as this?

“Do you have power switch reset breaks, or…?”

Damon sighed. “I’ll have to contact maintenance. But there’s still light in the hall. We might only need to reset the fuse for the closet. Let me just—” Our chests brushed, his fingers briefly on my waist as he slid past. “S-sorry about that.”

Could a blush be felt in the dark? Or was it just the impossible heat of this closet?

“It’s fine,” I mumbled, blindly groping for my phone on the desk. The tiny light was some salvation.

Damon rattled the door handle, but it didn’t budge. “Oh no. The electronic lock.” He sighed and tapped his forehead against the door. “We need someone to open this from the outside. I’ll call Marianne.” The light from his phone briefly illuminated his face. He tapped, swiped, and got his phone to make a whirry-ringing noise before the dial tone. He let out a short, sharp breath and started typing.

“Spotty signal?” I sympathized, scooting up onto the fax machine to sit down since there wasn’t much room to pull out the chair. “That’s tough. I’m more worried about the fire hazard.”

He wiped his forehead on the back of his arm, leaving a streak of sweat on his shirt. “The text will go through soon.”

“Whatever you say.”

He leaned against the door, frowning and typing away. Even two feet away with no internet or signal, he didn’t want to maintain a conversation.

“You can’t ignore me all day,” I said.

He met my gaze, the intensity glare from his phone two little bullets in his eyes. “I doubt I could if I tried.”

There wasn’t a lot of room to fight. Still, I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you changed your mind?”

Slumping, his eyelids lowered. “No. There are just a lot of semantics, and we didn’t have a lot of time…” He wrestled with his tie. “Wow, it’s hot.”

“Why do you wear those if you’re always loosening them?” I teased, waving him over so I could undo it better.

He set his phone upright on the fax machine to give us a modicum of light and stationed himself in front of me. “Because it’s expected of high-profile business guys. Much like heels on a woman.”

“Oh, these?” Flexing my stockinged foot only exacerbated my shoe’s slack, sweaty grip, and it slipped off to the floor with a thud. Cursing, I slid down to try to fish for it with my toes.

Damon laughed and popped open a few shirt buttons, the light from his phone accentuating the shadow on his Adam’s apple. “Look at us, all business casual.”

“Yeah…” I untucked my blouse, the silk brushing my flushed stomach and back. Finally, my skin could breathe. I rested the back of my head on the wall. “I guess one of the benefits of being hidden away is that no one can see how much of a mess I am.”

“Stop, you’re still gorgeous,” Damon muttered, looking away.

Still? Really? I rubbed my cheek against my shoulder, smiling. “Are you flirting with me?”

“We are going to get married,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. He wasn’t contractually obligated to tell me I was pretty.

“You look good, too,” I admitted, poking him with my toes. “Even all gross and sweaty.”

He laughed and dipped to nudge my leg playfully—only to sway at the last second and bang his knee into the copier, catching himself on the top scanner part. “Oof, sorry.”

“Are you okay? You look pale.” I scooted forward and took his temperature on the back of my hand. His soft, indignant huff reminded me of when he refused to rest in high school. “You’re warm and you’re sweating a lot.”

“It’s hot in here. I think I’m just worn out from running around looking after my cousin’s kids last night.”

“Aww, which cousin? It’s hard to believe they’re old enough to have kids.”

Damon’s gentle cider-colored eyes flicked across my face. “Yeah, time flies by, doesn’t it?”

Faster than I knew what to do with…

I sucked in a breath, not sure what I was going to say next, but the door beeped twice, then burst open, flooding the room with blinding light.

“Agh, why?!” I clutched Damon and hid behind him as a shield. Thank goodness those broad shoulders were good for something, although my face was mostly buried in his chest. How did he still smell like peppermint?

“Mr. Mae, I—oh! Ohhh.” Marianne backed away. “I’ll go tell maintenance to flip the circuit breaker so you two can finish.”

Finish?!

I shared a brief, harried look with Damon. With our flushed, sweaty skin, rumpled clothes, and tangled limbs…

“This isn’t what it looks like!” We pushed each other away as Marianne hurried away.

Our fake relationship hadn’t even started yet!