CHAPTER TWO

ASH WASN’T USED TO WAKING before sunset.

Nor was he used to waking to the sound of drawers opening and closing, doors slamming, people moving around the pool house with shuffling footsteps and calling voices. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but every formless word drilled into his skull, stabbing through his eardrums into his throbbing, hungover brain.

He’d shut himself in the pool house with a bottle of champagne, last night. There were still two dozen bottles in the fridge, sitting there forlorn after his father’s collapse had cancelled a fundraiser soiree he’d meant to host…last night, Ash had realized as he’d sat on his bed in the middle of rumpled covers, stared bleakly out the night-locked window, and swilled bitterly at the bottle. Last night the grand hall of the house was meant to be decked out in lights and brilliance, people swirling about like scraps of pretty colored paper, while his father presided over them with his kindly smile and plied rich useless things with enough champagne to loosen their pocketbooks in the name of charity—while Ash eyed other young shiftless sons of powerful men, and wondered which he’d be making headlines with tonight.

Instead his father was lying in a bed dying, and that fucking will meant Ash couldn’t even be there with him.

He had to be here, instead. Holding everything together as if, if he did everything right, he’d keep everything from falling apart so it would be okay when his father came back.

As if, if he managed not to fail at this, he’d pass some test and his reward would be Calvin Harrington standing in front of him, hale and whole, a heavy hand resting to the top of Ashton’s head in warm approval because for once, somehow, he’d done something right and fixed this entire fucking mess.

He didn’t remember falling asleep. He’d meant to call for a car, go out, maybe hit a club, find one of his usuals who understood no strings but also understood the comfort of familiarity…but he only remembered champagne flavored by the taste of tears, the world swimming, blurring, until the lamps lining the garden pathway outside were just hazes of gold moving like foo-lights beckoning him into the dark. He’d muttered something under his breath about Forsythe being a fucking asshole, and then everything had gone dark.

Until everything was suddenly far too bright, as there came a sound of rustling curtains, curtain rings sliding, and then sunlight stabbing against the backs of his eyelids.

Swearing, Ash rolled over and buried his face into the pillows. “What in the fuck?” he mumbled groggily.

“Get up, young Master,” Brand Forsythe’s icy voice demanded. “Eight in the morning is late enough to lie abed.”

Ash tensed.

Oh, this asshole was so fired.

He creaked one eye open. His head throbbed, a sledgehammer symphony inside his skull, and the intrusion of morning light added a few sword stabs right into the center of his brain. He stared blearily at the blurry shapes moving through his field of vision—until he recognized the gardener and his crew, quite busy emptying the drawers lining one wall of the open, terraced space into boxes and carting them outside. What the fu—

“Coffee,” Forsythe said, suddenly inserting himself into Ashton’s line of sight with an insulated silver mug, that stern, unforgiving face filling his vision. Forsythe sank to one knee next to the bed, one white-gloved hand draped against his thigh, the other brandishing the mug like a demand. Cutting green eyes drilled into Ashton. “I presume you will be too hungover to function without it.”

“Fuck. You.” Jesus fucking Christ, Ash was going to kill Vic. He pushed himself up on one aching arm just enough to snatch the coffee mug, the covers falling down to his waist. He took a testing sip, then grimaced at the overly sweetened, overly creamed, thick mess and thrust it back at Forsythe. “I like mine black.”

Forsythe tilted his head, taking the mug. “My apologies for presuming. Most children prefer sweets to bitters.”

Ash grit his teeth. “You trying to set a record for getting fired? Jesus fuck, what are you doing? What are they doing with my stuff?”

“Moving your things to the master suite,” Forsythe required, as if it was perfectly natural, and Ash scowled, grasping up a knotted handful of blankets and pulling them up to his chest.

“Goddammit, Forsythe, I’m naked!”

That cool glance slid over him, tracing over his bare chest as if trailing ice cubes in shivering pathways over his skin, dipping down to the barrier of the blanket against his hips before meeting his gaze once more. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Get out,” Ash bit off.

“Get dressed,” Forsythe countered smoothly.

“Not with you standing over me!”

Forsythe sighed with weary patience and pushed his glasses up his narrow nose with one long, white-gloved finger. “Young Master,” he said, as if it should be perfectly obvious, “I am here to help you get dressed.”

Ash froze. “…what?” Heat flushed through his cheeks. He stared at Forsythe. Was he for fucking serious? Was he supposed to stand here naked and let this man dress him? Touch him like he wasn’t stark ass-out? “That’s…not in your job description.”

“You did not give me a job description.” Forsythe’s lips pursed. He flicked an invisible speck off his sleeve. “I know my duties quite well. And if you do not, apparently your servants have been lax in your care.”

“I don’t fucking like relying on servants.”

“That would belie the reason you hired me.”

A frustrated growl welled in the back of Ash’s throat. “I hired you to help me organize the business side of things. I’m not so helpless I can’t dress myself.”

“You cannot even wear clothing appropriately sized for you.”

“Oh, you can fuck right off.”

“That,” Forsythe retorted, rising to his feet and setting the coffee mug aside on the nightstand with an almost ludicrously precise touch, “would be one thing that is not in my job description.”

Ash glared at him, wrinkling his nose.

Then rolled over and plunked face-down back into the pillows, hugging them to his chest.

To hell with this.

His head was killing him.

He’d be responsible tomorrow.

Forsythe sighed. Ash’s only warning was the faint hint of pressure as fingers curled in the duvet—before it suddenly whipped away along with the top sheet, cool morning air whoosing over his bare skin and practically slapping against his naked ass.

“Get up,” Forsythe said, an edge of steel entering his voice.

Ash yelped, scrambling to grab the fitted sheet, ripping it off one side of the mattress and dragging it over his hips before twisting upright into a sitting position, glaring at Forsythe. He thought he caught a snicker from one of the gardening crew passing through with another batch of boxes, and fire bloomed under his skin, simmering until his temples throbbed, ears burning.

“You fucking ass,” he bit off. “What the fuck are you trying to pull?”

“We have a day of work ahead of us.” Forsythe dropped the bundle of duvet pointedly to the floor. His gaze flicked for a moment to Ash’s throat, and Ash realized with a mortified shiver that Forsythe was eyeing the fading bite-mark on his neck. “I would like to assess first the state of Harrington Steel, then the state of the house, and appraise what business matters have been halted since your father is…indisposed. For that, you need to get up.” And for all the harsh, unyielding demand in that flinty stare…for a moment, that rolling, cultured baritone gentled just a touch. “You will have to take his place, young Master Harrington. There are empty spaces at Harrington Steel, and we must ascertain how you are to fit into them.”

That reminder hit with a more sickening slug than the post-champagne lurch in Ash’s stomach, draining his anger into a gray, hollow slurry that rolled in his gut. The retort on his tongue died, and he lowered his eyes, staring down at his fingers clutched in the fine linen of the sheets, gripping them up until the fibers strained.

“…yeah.”

He waited for another cutting remark from Forsythe. Another accusation. Another reminder of how inadequate he was. He’d managed to prove that in just a few days, with Harington Steel’s stocks down by more than half and investor faith dropping on speculation about how he’d run the business into the ground when his father inevitably died. He didn’t have to be on top of the business world to hear the rumors, to get the frantic shareholder emails he didn’t reply to because he didn’t know what to say.

But Forsythe remained silent, save for the faint sound of his polished shoes on the gleaming wooden flooring—drifting away, then returning, before the man’s tall, formidable bulk sank down on the edge of the bed, weighing it down enough to tilt Ash toward the heat he gave off, a faint scent of something earthy and cool and dark clinging to him. A gloved hand extended to Ash, offering four Tylenol in an open palm; the other hand proffered a fizzing glass of seltzer water.

“Perhaps you would find this more agreeable to your hangover,” Forsythe said quietly.

Ash lifted his head, searching Forsythe’s face. Dark green eyes looked back at him, frank and unflinching, yet revealing nothing. Ash didn’t know what he was looking for. He’d just hired this asshole yesterday, and he was already riding roughshod over Ash, spinning him into a whirlwind until Ash didn’t even know if he should stop him or just let him have his way.

And he didn’t know what he thought he’d see, in that impassive gaze.

It was pathetic to be so desperate for approval he’d turn to a stranger who only owed him as much as a paycheck bought, anyway.

He lowered his eyes again, scraping the Tylenol from Forsythe’s palm and into his own, then tossing the pills back in a dry swallow that lodged in his throat before taking the glass and washing them down with a deep drink.

“Thank you,” he forced himself to say, passing the glass back to Forsythe. “How did you even know I’d be hungover?”

“I hazarded a guess. Now.” Forsythe held up a pair of Ash’s boxer-briefs, just a tiny swatch of black fabric, and shook them out briskly between his hands. “If you would be so kind as to give me your legs.”

Ash’s eyes widened. His stomach dropped—and this time there was no mistaking the snicker from the stream of people passing in and out of the pool house. Scowling, he snatched the boxer-briefs from Forsythe’s hands. “Give me those,” he hissed, then darted a glance over his shoulder, hiding the underwear under the sheet quickly. “And get out. I’ll dress myself.”

“But—”

“Get out,” he repeated, then flung a glare toward the gardening crew. “All of you get the hell out. For fuck’s sake, can I get dressed in peace?”

“Today,” Forsythe answered, the single word practically a threat, his eyes glinting darkly as he rose to his feet and swept another of those infuriating bows, deep and yet utterly mocking. “I’ll have a car brought around when you’re ready, young Master.”

“I don’t see you leaving.”

For a moment, he’d swear a ghost of a smile flitted across Forsythe’s mouth.

“As you command,” Forsythe said, and turned and walked from the pool house, lifting one hand in a quiet but imperious snap.

The gardening crew, who had frozen mid-task, hadn’t moved—hadn’t left, not even when Ash had demanded it.

But at that snap they turned to file out, hefting boxes and leaving in subdued silence, practically an entourage in Forsythe’s wake.

Ash stared after them, then groaned and flopped back against the pillows.

“Fuck my life,” he muttered, then tightened the sheet around his hips and rolled out of bed.

He’d finished yanking the curtains closed and pulling the French doors shut for some semblance of privacy before he realized Forsythe had laid his clothing out over the rattan chair near the bed. On the table next to the chair, he’d left a tray with a few slices of toast, scrambled eggs, half a grapefruit, a tall glass of orange juice—and a spraying pink and orange tiger lily decorating the tray in delicate accent, fresh-cut and its petals still glistening with beads of moisture. Ash stared.

He felt like a fucking toddler being fed and dressed for school.

And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to fire Forsythe or kiss him, when he flung himself down in the chair and scooped up a bite of the eggs. He’d never tasted simple scrambled eggs that tasted so good in his life—and he knew damned well the house chef hadn’t made them. Richard was such a snot about gourmet gluten-free food he couldn’t do simple to save his life, and the last time he’d tried scrambled eggs he’d somehow managed to make them both rubbery and runny. These were light, fluffy, perfectly seasoned with just a touch of pepper, almost melting in Ash’s mouth, and he let out a relieved groan as he devoured bite after bite and let the food settle the roaring in his skull until he no longer thought it would crack.

He lingered over the toast and orange juice, closing his eyes and making himself settle, breathe, smooth his hackles. That was one fuck of a way to wake up…but it didn’t mean Forsythe was wrong.

He just didn’t have to be such a dick about it.

But if Ash was going to get his shit together…

No more sleeping until sunset. No more losing himself in the arms of strangers, half-drunk and not even caring if they only wanted him because they knew who he was and how much money was riding on his shoulders and just how likely it was they’d get their moment of fame when the next morning saw their faces splashed in the tabloids. Ash smiled bitterly, pressing his lips against the cool rim of the glass.

He practically kept the tabloids in business.

If he shut himself away and refused to do his job, half the publishing industry might grind to a halt. At least last night he’d been too drunk to wake up with company.

Forsythe probably would have flashed his one-night stand’s ass everywhere, too.

Sighing, he finished his orange juice, stole five minutes in a quick shower, and rose to pull on his clothing. One of his old single-breasted suits in deep navy, nearly black, with subtle pinstripes; he didn’t even remember what he’d bought it for, probably one of his father’s fundraisers, but he didn’t recall it fitting this comfortably, as he settled the coat over his button-down…and he distinctly recalled the over-long pants legs catching on his heels all night at the event, his draping suit cuff dipping into food trays as he browsed the refreshments. But the pants legs fell perfectly now, stopping just at the tops of his shoes, and the sleeves ended neatly a precise half-inch above the cuff off his shirt sleeve.

Staring, Ash fingered the hem, then flipped it back over his wrist. The stitching there was definitely new, neat and precise in nearly militant lines. Holy fuck.

Had Forsythe fucking tailored his clothing?

How did the man even know his fit?

And when the fuck had he even…?

He looked quickly over his shoulder, half expecting the man to pop out of nowhere to answer a question he hadn’t even spoken out loud. The pool house was silent, drawers hanging open, everything in disarray. No sign of Forsythe.

But the specter of the man was present, practically breathing down the back of Ashton’s neck.

That man was a demon.

Ash let out an incredulous laugh, tucked his wallet into his pocket, and headed outside and into morning sunshine tinted that watery color that promised autumn was loosening its last hold and the brisk, nippy chill to the air would soon become pure and biting ice. Slipping his hand into his pockets, Ash followed the main walk through the garden and up to the front drive of the sprawling, palatial yet minimalist Mediterranean style mansion in smooth white that threw the sun back in a blinding glare. The red brick of the courtyard was like spilled blood in contrast, while the gleaming Mercedes pulled into the drive was a blot of black ink in the center.

Forsythe stood at attention next to the car, and as Ash rounded the house, Forsythe dipped another of those bows and pulled the backseat door open. Ash eyed him, but sighed and slipped into the backseat. As soon as he was settled, Forsythe closed the door firmly, then rounded the car to the driver’s seat and slid in. Smoothly, he started the Mercedes and pulled it forward, easing out of the courtyard and into the long, winding, tree-shrouded drive that coiled from the Harrington estate toward the main streets of New York. Ash watched the back of Forsythe’s head for a moment, then sighed, looking away, watching the tree-light reflections dappling against the windows.

“Are you driving me because you think you’re my jailer?” he murmured. “Don’t trust me to show up on my own?”

“I am driving you because this, too, is part of a valet’s job,” Forsythe replied crisply. For a moment his eyes, in the reflection in the rear view mirror, flicked to Ash. “Your comfort and safety are my utmost priority. That includes ensuring you are safely conveyed to your destinations.” He shifted flawlessly as the Mercedes eased onto the public streets, the rumble and hum of the finely-tuned vehicle changing around them into a soothing growl. “From this point forward, I will not allow a stranger to be entrusted with your safety. You can either hire a driver I will personally screen, or allow me to drive you.”

Ash arched a brow. “Were you this bossy with Vic’s family?”

“I did not need to be,” Forsythe replied pointedly.

Ash grit his teeth, but let it go.

The annoying part was that the bastard was right.

Silence held, on the drive through New York. Silence was better. Safer. He didn’t know what to say to Forsythe, anyway, and Ash had other things on his mind.

Like the tall, glossy spear of glass and silver thrusting against the New York City skyline, reflective surface painted in the colors of the day and sun-flare blinding off the tall brushed-steel HS emblazoned vertically down the side of the building.

If Harrington Steel was a kingdom and the home a palace…the real throne was here. The Tower, people tended to call it. The seat of power. And right now that seat was occupied by a pretender prince, its king gone.

He was just keeping the seat warm for his father, he told himself.

That was all.

And he nearly cringed when Forsythe parked the car, let them both out, and led him to the door—only for the doorman to scramble to open it for him, dipping his head and tipping his cap in deference.

“Mr. Harrington,” the doorman said respectfully.

Ash nodded and forced a frozen smile. And managed to keep it, as they moved through the lobby to the elevator surrounded by double-taking stares, scrambled greetings of “Mr. Harrington” repeated over and over again until he wanted to scream I’m not Mr. Harrington. I’m Ash. I’m not ready to be Mr. Harrington.

But Forsythe’s watchful presence, hovering at his shoulder, kept him silent.

The elevator let them off on the top floor, and the vaulted, open spaces of the glass and steel CEO suite. The airy reception area was empty save for Ms. Vernon, settled primly behind her desk and tapping away so rapidly that the few slim, dark braids that slipped loose from their tight bun swayed into her smoothly burnished brown face with the force of her keystrokes. She didn’t even pause, fingers a blur, as she glanced up with a warm, polite smile, her dark brown eyes shrewd but her assessment pleasant.

“Good morning, Ashton,” she said. She’d never called Ashton anything but that for as long as she’d worked for his father, and he felt his shoulders coming down from around his ears even as she transferred her gaze to Forsythe. “Mr. Forsythe. Welcome to your first day on the job.”

“Believe me,” Forsythe said dryly, “my first day started before the ink was even dry on the contract.”

Ash shot him a foul look. Ms. Vernon only chuckled. “Ashton, I’ve held all your calls this morning and promised a return within the next twenty-four hours. If you’d like to get settled, I’ll forward your correspondence.”

“You can forward it to me,” Forsythe interrupted. “I will handle preparing the young Master’s daily diary, and will report his calendar to you for reference in screening correspondence.”

Ms. Vernon blinked. So did Ash, before he scowled at Forsythe. “You don’t even have an email address on the company intranet yet.”

“Yes, I do,” Forsythe corrected smoothly, then turned and walked away, practically sailing down the polished slate floor and through the double doors, into the CEO’s office.

Ash stared after him. So did Ms. Vernon, before she arched both brows, canting her head with a soft whistle through her teeth.

“I know,” Ash groaned, as the door banged closed. “I know.”

Her lips tightened in a clear struggle not to laugh. “I didn’t say a word, Ashton.”

“You didn’t have to.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Wish me luck.”

Ms. Vernon’s soft, gentle laughter chased him through the heavy slate doors, which pulled open with the weight of all the responsibility crushing down on him and closed with the finality of a prison sentence.

Forsythe had already settled himself at the broad desk of weathered, graying, repurposed railway wood bolted together with old rail ties; he’d hauled one of the chairs from the other side of the desk and positioned it next to the high-backed leather chair, and had a laptop flipped open in front of him, the Harrington Steel decal stuck on the corner. It was clearly brand new, probably even a newer model than the one Ash had left closed on the desk last night.

Ash blinked. “Where did you get that?”

“I already requisitioned it from IT,” Forsythe murmured distractedly, large hands moving with speed and dexterity across the keyboard, the sound of typing softened by the white kid gloves. The laptop screen reflected in his glasses.

“When?”

A pointed glance flicked up over the top of the laptop screen. “While you were in bed this morning.”

“And they gave it to you without my approval?”

That pointed look lingered, then dropped back down to the screen. “They appeared relieved that someone else was stepping in.”

Hurt was a hard shot to the center of Ash’s chest, the kind of blow that could stop a heart and then start it again. Fuck. Fuck, what was he even trying to do? He was useless. He wasn’t cut out for this. Everyone knew that. Every last person bobbing and ducking and ass-kissing calling him Mr. Harrington knew he was just a fucking waste of space, and they were just waiting for either his Dad to come back or to just die so the Board of Directors could declare Ash incompetent, remove him, and replace him with someone who could actually do this.

Letting himself dance around in this puppet show was just asking to humiliate himself.

“Fuck this,” he ground out around the lump in his throat. “I’m leaving.”

Forsythe went stone-still. “Where do you think you are going?”

“Out. Nobody needs me here anyway, right?” Ash glared at Forsythe. Everything inside him ached with an awful and pulling tension that felt like it would snap and unravel him into nothing but a pathetic pile of threads. He turned away, yanking at the door. “So is it your fucking business where I go?”

No man as large as Forsythe should move as quickly as he did. One moment Ash was pulling at the door—and the next Forsythe had rounded the desk. His gloved hand covered Ash’s, stilling it on the handle, pushing the door firmly closed.

And holding it there, as Forsythe braced his hand against the door over Ash’s head, pinning the door in its frame and trapping Ash between a wall of slate and a wall of man so overpowering and intimidating that his shadow turned the glassy light of the sun-filled room into darkness.

“It is entirely my business,” Forsythe bit off, pinning Ash with a fierce look. “How do you think I knew the entirety of your history and dilemma without being told?” The gaze that raked over Ash was harsh, scoring. “You are constantly tarnishing your family’s reputation in the papers. You have been notorious since you returned from boarding school and appeared in the public eye—even more since your father’s sudden illness. What do you think it would do for your family’s standing if you were to be seen carousing about with your…gyrating paramours with your father in his current state and his business affairs unattended?”

“I don’t care!” Ash shot back, breathing in great, hoarse, heaving gasps that he wouldn’t let turn into sobs. This fucking asshole—this asshole crowding him, acting like Ash was supposed to obey him like some fucking child, talking to him like this when he just…he just…

He hadn’t even had time to hurt before he was thrown into this.

He hadn’t even had time to cope with the world falling down around his ears before everyone was waiting for him to put it back together, and judging if he placed so much as one stone out of place in the million stones it took to made an empire.

Gulping back another harsh breath, he glared at Forsythe. “Is it so fucking wrong of me to want a distraction?”

Forsythe’s eyes narrowed. He studied Ash in measuring silence, before inclining his head, then straightening, his hand falling away from the door. He slipped his fingers under the hem of one glove and peeled it off precisely, revealing a long, angular hand with crude knuckles and a certain brutish grace and finesse to it.

“Very well,” he said—then caught the fingertip of the second glove in his teeth, his stern, firm-lipped mouth moving against the white fabric as he tugged the glove away from his other hand.

Confusion roiled in Ash’s gut. His gaze darted from Forsythe’s eyes to his mouth, those hands, then back again. “…what?”

“Since male attention is the distraction you desire,” Forsythe replied calmly, “I shall oblige.”

Neatly, meticulously, he tucked his gloves into his suit coat pocket.

Then captured Ash’s face in the heated coarseness of palms worn work-rough and capable, tilted his head up, and leaned down to claim his mouth in the hard and undeniable command of those cruel and unsmiling lips.

Where Forsythe’s words were ice, his mouth was fire, burning and wild—and Ash went hot in a trembling flush from his fingertips to the twisting breathless depths of his stomach, burning in a liquid wash as if he’d plunged into a sea of molten flame. That searing ocean stole the air from his lungs and swallowed him deep, in over his head before he’d even known he was drowning.

Forsythe took command of his lips the same way he’d taken command of Ash’s life, and while Ash gasped and floundered and clutched at Forsythe’s arms, at the hard-hewn strength concealed beneath the lie of the smoothly tailored suit…Forsythe showed him with languid, domineering control exactly what he meant to oblige with every soft, taunting graze of his teeth and every flick of a tongue that licked and teased at Ash’s throbbing, sensitized mouth.

For a breath, he couldn’t stop himself from going boneless, from arching against Forsythe. His usual distractions were boys his own age—college boys with football bodies and rich clothing and easy, shit-eating grins. He’d never been kissed before by a man who knew what he was doing with such certainty that he made Ash feel small and vulnerable and new, suddenly not so sure of himself at all, trembling and overwhelmed and completely swept up in the sheer magnetic force of Forsythe’s absolute control.

God, he tasted like liquor and sharp steel edges, tasted weathered and wild all at once, and the size and heat of his body, the feeling of muscle tested and worn by time, were turning Ash’s blood heavy and hot and dark. Every time he tried to steal a breath around that deep, dominating kiss it drew every part of his body up tight until he felt the smallest inhalation pulling at the base of his achingly hard cock.

This was what he needed. What could make the pure shit of his life go away for a while. What could make him forget he was so goddamned pathetic he didn’t even know where to start with his Dad’s pride and joy before he’d already halfway run the business into the ground. What could let him ignore that just to be able to get up in the morning, he’d had to hire someone—

Hire someone.

And that someone was currently kissing him like a whirlwind.

The heat in Ash’s blood turned cold. He tore away from Forsythe’s mouth, jerking his face to the side, and shoved against his chest, thrusting himself back against the door with a gasp. “Forsythe!”

Forsythe stilled as if his off switch had been flipped, only to shift into motion again, his hands slowly falling away from Ash’s face and leaving the ghostly burn of their afterimpression behind. He regarded Ash coolly, as though Forsythe’s chest wasn’t subtly heaving, his mouth parted and glistened and reddened. As if this were just another duty, and now it had been done.

“Do you find me unattractive, then?” he asked.

“N-no, it’s not that, I—I—”

Ash was going to throw up. He glared at Forsythe, his lips trembling; this felt all wrong, and even worse was that some deep frightened part of him wanted it back. Wanted that feeling of letting go of control and letting Forsythe take over and make him feel small and sheltered and hot and pleasured and completely at his mercy. No. No. Fuck no, he just…just…he might be a fucking spoiled shit, but he wasn’t that kind of person.

His fingers curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. “Fuck, you think I want sex to be some kind of transaction like this?” he demanded. “You’re my fucking employee so you’re just humoring my fucking libido for a paycheck?”

Forsythe’s calm regard didn’t waver. As if this was nothing; as if…as if… “I have every intention of being your faithful servant in all things.”

“Not that,” Ash hissed. “Not that.”

Forsythe started to step closer, one hand lifting—but Ash jerked away, sliding to the side and away from the door, edging back toward his desk.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t, I just…” Bitterness made his mouth feel like a tight, sour pucker, drawing down. “Fine. I won’t go anywhere. I’ll…” He tore his gaze away from Forsythe, but ended up staring at the desk. The desk that would always be his father’s desk, and Ash was too small to fill its seat. He folded his arms over his chest, hugging them to himself. “…just…give me a  little space for a while.”

“As you wish,” Forsythe replied smoothly.

The faintest whisper of stone on stone hinted at the door pulling open—but it didn’t shut. No sound of small echoes from patent leather footsteps. Then:

“I apologize if I made you feel in any way violated,” Forsythe murmured.

“No. It’s not that.” Fuck, if anything it was the opposite. Ash…Ash was the one who’d crossed a line here, even if he hadn’t started it. He hunched into his shoulders. “But thank you for apologizing.”

“Young Master,” Forsythe replied.

Then the door swung closed, soft sigh of settling hinges, faint click of the latch.

And Ash was alone.

Just a speck of dust, floating inside this hollow, empty space.