Cheryl stumbled onto the vintage heels. Mal’s command to get out, only seconds after he’d cradled her in his arms while the aftershocks of an orgasm rippled through her in delicious waves, struck her like a slap. “What?”

“You can’t come into my office again.” He left her at the collapsed conference table, strode to his closet, and tossed her one of his shirts and oversized pants. “It makes me lose my concentration.”

The dismissal stung.

She put on the clothes, buttoning the silk with shaking fingers. “So if I can’t come into your office, do I call you when I want to go home tonight?”

“Have Jasper take you. And bring you back, too.”

She paused. So he was breaking his promise to take her. “Are you coming home at all?”

He rubbed his forehead. “I can’t. Not until the launch.”

He was on a deadline. This was his last chance to beat his rivals. The company was going to be sold or destroyed in two weeks. She could wait.

Except she couldn’t.

Cheryl finished dressing. “Mal, you can’t take on everything yourself.”

“I always have.” His teeth gritted. “I always will.”

Amber’s talk returned to her memory. He wasn’t alone. This was a team effort.

“Pushing everyone away isn’t going to make you a better performer,” she said. “Every artist needs a critique.”

“I need no one.”

Ouch. “No one? Not even me?”

He stared at her for a long moment.

Then he turned away. “Not right now.”

Cheryl stood in the middle of the office in his ill-fitting pants and shirt and her crazy hair and she clenched her fists. Some residual power of the pinup clothes must be left in her. He needed her but not right now? No. That wasn’t okay.

“You can’t dismiss me like I don’t matter,” she said. “I’m not just your employee anymore.”

He rocketed to his feet. Anger blackened his features. “You were never my employee! Your boss is Jasper.”

“Even so.”

“If Sard Carnelian beats us again, we all lose! The only thing that matters is this company.”

“That’s not the only thing that matters.”

He blinked.

“Your family matters,” she said. “Your health matters. I matter.”

He bellowed. “I’m doing this all for you!”

The sound washed over her like a violent windstorm. Yes, of course he was. He wasn’t doing this for vanity. He wanted to prove it could be done. To give hope to other low-class male dragons. To secure a nice future for her and to keep his siblings together.

But he couldn’t do it all alone. And he couldn’t keep treating her in this hot-cold-hot manner.

With the strength of her feelings from only minutes earlier, she continued to fight for her value.

“I love you,” she said.

He scrubbed his face. “Cheryl. Please. I don’t have time for you. Get out.”

The casual dismissal of her declaration slapped her across the face again. Her whole face got hot. Her tongue grew two sizes in her head and her throat went dry and sharp. Her heart pounded like she was running in a race and she sweated like she was standing on a roaring fire.

He scrawled something in the margin of a file.

She took a stand in his office and stabbed her finger at him. “I said I’d marry you and I will. But you’re going to have to develop our relationship.”

“My schedule is packed.”

“Mal, look at me.”

“I don’t have time for your distractions!” He clenched his pen. “If I look at you, I’ll lose it. I’ll take you in the middle of the office. And I’ll do it again. And again. Until I can’t think of anything else. Until all that exists is me and you.” He stabbed the notepad. “Don’t ask me to do this. Not right now.”

Fine. Fine, fine, fine.

She wasn’t like his mother. She wouldn’t make him destroy his company because he prioritized it and hurt her feelings. But his time was coming. This obsessive self-sacrifice could not continue.

“Fine. I’ll take away my ‘distraction.’”

God, she was such an understanding girlfriend. He better appreciate it.

He scribbled something on his notepad. “Great. Get out.”

Damn him. “But after this crisis, you will make time for me or you won’t have a wife!”

He blinked in shock.

With that forceful un-Cheryl-like declaration, she threw open the door of his wrecked office and stormed out.