Chapter One

On her husband’s thirtieth birthday—the last truly good day of either of their lives—Miki woke him up with a kiss, still believing the future stretched ahead of them bright and endless and theirs.

“Good morning,” she purred, nibbling his bottom lip as he stirred. “Happy Birthday, baby.”

Liam’s eyelashes fluttered as her lips met his. “It’s early,” he muttered.

“I know.”

“Too early.”

Miki was already climbing on top of him, tugging down his boxers as she straddled his waist. “I set the alarm fifteen minutes before it usually is,” she murmured, running a finger down his stubble. “I’m going to help you welcome the big three-oh the right way…”

No light filtered through the blinds—not at this hour, and not at this time of the year. The apartment would have been cold without both of them to keep each other warm; the weather had taken an unseasonable chill lately, as if spring were refusing to get up and perform its seasonal duties. Miki and Liam’s two cats crouched near the heating vents, oblivious to what was happening over in the bed with their humans.

“I’m not really thirty, am I?” Liam groaned, reaching for her. He sat up a bit in bed, rising to full wakefulness as what was beneath his boxers stiffened against her thigh. “It can’t be true. I can’t possibly be that old.”

It was, although old wasn’t something Miki thought about either of them. She’d only been married to Liam for six months, after all—though they’d been nigh on inseparable for the better part of the last five years. She knew some of her friends teased her about their age gap, though a thirty-year-old man and a twenty-five year old woman weren’t so far apart in age to be more than casually controversial. It helped that Liam was such a late bloomer—and Miki was such a cornball.

It wouldn’t have mattered to her even if they did do more than joke. Every morning she woke up next to the love of her life felt like a little miracle—a brilliant heist she’d somehow gotten away with, a winning lottery ticket she’d found lying in the street just waiting to be picked up and brought home. Liam was kind, funny, brilliant, great in bed, and treated her like the most important woman in the world.

Oh, and six months from now he was going to be worth tens of millions of dollars.

That part felt good, too.

“Like you’re upset about turning thirty,” Miki said, shutting him up with another kiss. “You’ll be a silver fox before you know it. Not that you could get any hotter…”

He slid a hand beneath her t-shirt and took hold of one of her breasts. Miki arched her back, groaning, her body still warm and tingly with sleep.

“This is the best way to wake up,” Liam rumbled. “Really. I mean that.”

“Well, it’s your birthday,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “Since we’re both going to be doing way too much work today to really enjoy it, I figured I should give you a good riding before work. You—”

Miki broke off with a gasp. His hand had just slid between her thighs.

“Oh wow,” Liam groaned. “You’re so smooth down there.”

“I shaved before bed,” Miki said, proud of herself. “I know how much you like it.”

“Jesus, could you get any more perfect?”

They kissed for a while, Miki’s fingers around Liam’s cock while his hand worked slowly between her thighs. By the time she pulled back, gasping and more than ready, there was pre-cum all over her fingers and a puddle forming in her panties.

“I’m ready for more,” Liam growled.

Miki leaned over, still straddling Liam, and opened the dresser next to the bed. A pack of condoms winked at her inside, one side torn open with several wrappers laying loose beside it. She plucked one out and took the foil in her teeth.

Liam went quiet. “You know, it is my birthday….”

That sexy smile of his made Miki want to toss the condom to the carpet and pretend she’d forgotten all about it. She’d never been able to tolerate hormonal birth control, but it wasn’t like they used protection all the time—during the safe part of her cycle, which she carefully tracked with an app on her phone, she let him finish inside her. It was amazing, and intimate, and special.

Last year, Liam’s birthday fell on one of the safe days.

This year, he wasn’t so lucky.

“I want to,” she said with an awkward smile. “But it’s super not a safe day. And with the acquisition so close, we really can’t afford any distractions—”

“A child’s not a distraction,” Liam said, still smiling playfully. “But I know what you’re talking about. It’s cool. I understand.” He sat up a bit and kissed her. “Worth a shot, though.”

She laughed it off, but heat blossomed between her thighs. Liam turned her on, obviously—the man was a stud, even if he stubbornly insisted he was still the same nerd he’d been when they first met five years ago—but even his fingers didn’t normally get her this turned on.

Maybe it was the thought of his other birthday present.

“You know,” she whispered as she rolled the condom down his shaft, “Harper’s getting back from Japan on Friday.”

Harper was Miki’s best friend. Twenty-four, blonde, with the kind of smile that was made for TV cameras and a body that would have fit right in on a fashion designer’s runway. She’d been working at Cygnus with both of them for the last two years, helping them build their start-up from a handful of nerds in a shared office space to Silicon Valley’s most talked-about new company. Liam was the boss, Miki the second-in-command, and coders like Kareena and Josh were the firm’s beating heart—but Harper was the public face. The PR girl. The always-hustling, always-smiling queen of fundraising.

And in a week, she’d be something a hell of a lot more exciting than that.

“Yeah?” Liam’s voice had already gone rough, the way Miki liked. His hands gripped her hips as she guided the crown of his cock between her thighs, lowering herself onto him slowly.

“Mmh hmm,” Miki groaned, sinking onto him slowly. Both of them moaned as one as he bottomed out inside of her, her walls gripping him snugly. “Which means that Saturday…”

“The hotel,” he grunted, looking straight in her eyes.

The hotel.

It had taken themselves ages to work their way up to it. It was no secret that Harper was gorgeous, extremely bisexual, and so flirtatious with both her best friend and her best friend’s husband that she’d practically been walking around with a ‘threesome’ sign around her neck since the day they tied the knot. She’d been down for an arrangement like the one they’d set up for Saturday from pretty much the first time they got drunk together at an after-work start-up mixer.

But it wasn’t until Miki brought up the idea of doing something ‘special’ for Liam on his thirtieth birthday (smiling that big cornball grin as she asked for the tenth time “isn’t there any fantasy you’ve always wanted to try?”) that he’d finally gotten the nerve to ask for the three-way. She could tell that as excited as her husband was, he was also a little nervous about the whole thing. Liam’s sex life was pretty vanilla before Miki came into his life. He’d never had two girls at the same time before.

I’ve never had a threesome, either, Miki told herself.

“You and me,” she groaned, rocking back on her heels as she took him deep. “And Harper. Dinner at the hotel Saturday night, and then…”

Liam grinned up at her. “Say it.”

“Both of us fucking your brains out the rest of the weekend,” she gasped, rocking her hips harder in those little circles she knew always drove him crazy. “We’ve booked Saturday and Sunday night. Neither of us are going to leave that room for anything other than getting the room service from out of the hallway.”

He thrust upwards into her, his eyelashes fluttered. “Fuck, it’s really gonna happen. I still can’t believe it.”

“Believe it, buster,” Miki groaned. She leaned over him, face-to-face, her hair falling around them both like a privacy curtain. “Harper’s been texting me ideas all week. Stuff she wants to do to you. Stuff she wants to watch me do to you.”

He grabbed her wrists. “Tell me,” he growled.

“And spoil the surprise—?”

Slap! His hand came down on her ass, spanking her through her panties.

Something shifted inside of Miki. “Ungh, yeah! She wants to watch us first,” she gasped, getting into it now. “Picture it: her lying there all naked and gorgeous, touching that tight little pussy while she watches you fuck my brains out…!”

“Fuck, that sounds so hot,” Liam groaned. “Keep going?”

Miki glanced down at the spot where the two of them joined. “You won’t have to wear one of these,” she purred, her fingers running over the rubber.

She knew that part would surprise him. Liam’s brows shot skyward. “Really?”

Miki shook her head. “She’s on the pill. She wants you to unload inside her, babe. I want you to unload inside her…”

The mental image hit her with a surprising strength. Liam inside of Harper, unprotected, feeling every little ridge of her soft interior. Intimate with her in a way that the two of them could normally only be intimate a few days a month.

She pictured her best friend bouncing up and down in her husband’s lap, her pussy clenching at the thought—

And suddenly she was thinking something else entirely.

Harper pinned to the bed. Liam—Liam in shadow, so that she couldn’t even see his face—pummelling her into the mattress, not just making love to her best friend but fucking her. Using her to get off. Using both of them. Not like friends, or partners, but whores.

And Miki next to her, her fingers deep in her pussy as Harper whimpered and squirmed and tried to rise, bringing her lips to the blonde’s ear and whispering…

Whispering what? The fantasy dissolved as warmth built in her core, her climax so close she could taste it. The thought should have bothered her—her fantasies were never normally this dark—but instead, it left her fucking soaked. Almost feral.

She fucked him so hard the cats ran from the room, as if spooked.

Liam’s voice reached her from a long distance, so lost in his own pleasure that he didn’t notice the change in her. “I’m going to fuck her from behind,” he grunted, upthrusting hard against that special spot deep in Miki’s channel, “while she goes down on you, babe. I want to watch you cum while I’m inside of her. And then I want you both to share me with your mouths…”

His hands went to her ass, digging in as he thrust harder. The image filled her mind, savage and hot—her and her best friend worshipping a cock together. Harper getting fucked and filled, Miki writhing beneath her tongue as she stared up at the man who’d claimed them both.

The man who owned them.

The man who’d commanded Miki to give him her best friend like a present—

Suddenly, inexplicably, something felt wrong about this scenario.

It only took Miki a heartbeat to realize what it was. The condom!

It was intrusive. Wrong. Her man didn’t wear condoms. Her man always fucked raw when he was sharing her with a new girl…

The feeling was so intense it shocked her. Made her dizzy with lust.

Before she could question the sudden, desperate need inside of her, Miki lifted off of Liam’s cock. He let out a sound of frustration, confusion filling his features, but she was already ripping the condom off of his cock, tossing it across the room like a disgusting spider she’d discovered in bed with them.

She slammed herself down on his cock so hard it was like she’d impaled herself.

“Fuck! Yes!”

Liam fucked her harder, groaning as her heat and wetness washed over his dick. “Miki, what the fuck—”

She cried out, arching her back, her eyes shut tight as she took him raw and deep into her core.

“Fuck the safe day!” she groaned, riding him harder than she could remember doing in years. “I need to feel you! Please, oh fuck, please cum in me…!”

She could feel Liam’s confusion. She’d never been like this with him before—she didn’t set many boundaries, but when she did, they were set in stone. This was different.

“Fill me up, sir,” Miki groaned, some tiny part of her brain shocked by how submissive and desperate she sounded. “My pussy belongs to you! My pussy has always belonged to you…!”

Liam thrust one more time, hard, and came with a strangled shout.

The feeling of his cock inside of her, pulsing and jerking against her walls as he shot his load, sent Miki right over the edge. Fireworks exploded behind her eyes as the most intense orgasm she could remember in months coursed through her, relief flooding her so strongly that tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Her inner walls clenched around Liam like a fist, milking him greedily, like she didn’t just want but needed every drop.

She collapsed in a heap next to him, flushed and grinning.

They lay there for a few moments, neither of them speaking. “Holy shit,” Liam gasped once he found his voice. “What the hell’s gotten into you today, babe?”

Miki lay there with her eyes closed, the warmth of her man’s load inside of her. She opened her eyes to find Liam laying beside her, staring at her like he’d just discovered she was a secret sex goddess. For a moment—it must have been a trick of the light—she looked like an entirely different person.

Then she let out that cornball laugh of hers and rolled over to snuggle him.

“Happy birthday, I guess,” she giggled against his chest. “I don’t know—something about the thought of you, me and Harper this weekend’s got me really hot.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Liam admitted. “Um. You said today wasn’t a safe day…”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s probably fine.”

“Probably?”

A blush rose to Miki’s cheeks. “The acquisition is for sure coming in the next six months,” she whispered, tracing lines over his chest with a nail. “Would it be so terrible if the wife of the founder of Silicon Valley’s newest unicorn has a cute little baby bump in all the pictures the interviewer takes for Forbes?”

He held her against her, grinning. “You’re sure?” he asked, a catch in his voice.

“We’ve been putting it off long enough,” she said, serious now. Then an impish grin spread across her face. “Besides, if we start going raw it means you won’t have to buy condoms for the hotel this weekend.”

She saw his face light up like Christmas morning at the thought.

“Tell me that doesn’t appeal to you, birthday boy.”

“It does,” he said, covering her with kisses. “It very much does. God, I love you so much, babe. You’re so fucking perfect.”

“We’re perfect for each other,” she murmured. She kissed him once more, then got out of bed. “Want me to make you a birthday breakfast before we head to work?”

“That would be awesome,” he said, watching her from the bed. “This girl and I worked up quite an appetite this morning…”

Miki grinned. “In five days, you’re going to be saying that about Harper.”

“We both will.”

As Liam went off to shower, shave and get dressed for the day, Miki cracked some eggs into a pan and tossed some bacon (the microwave kind, unfortunately) into the toaster oven. Once the acquisition was over and they were all millionaires, she could probably afford her own personal chef, but for now, she made a simple birthday breakfast with love.

As she worked, she tried to ignore the way Liam’s words echoed in her head.

What the hell’s gotten into you today, babe?

It was just a little special birthday sex. A sneak preview of Saturday. She was looking forward to taking the fantasy she’d had unspooling in her head when she decided she had to tear Liam’s condom off and making it real, that was all.

Nothing more than that.

And why not get hot over it? It was Liam’s first threesome.

And hers.

So why did thinking about it fill her with this strange sense of deja vu?

xXx

The office was buzzing with energy by the time Liam and Miki arrived.

Cygnus occupied the top floor of a renovated warehouse in the city’s commercial district, and there were traces of its former history everywhere if you knew where to look. The windows were long rows rather than narrow slits, looking out over the city skyline, and you could hardly set down your coffee cup without putting it on a bit of exposed brick or stainless steel left over from the building’s previous purpose. Miki put hers on the edge of the galley table as she sized up the room.

Normally she hated open floor plans. But Liam’s design was great—like pretty much everything else her husband put his mind to. People liked it. It worked for Cygnus.

Probably because people actually liked working here.

“Happy birthday, boss!” Kareena called out as Liam headed into his office.

The Indian girl sat at what she politely referred to as her ‘battlestation’: three monitors flanking her like the mirrors on a vanity. Code filled two from top to bottom, while the third showed a live feed of a baby red panda from the Chennai Zoo. Kareena claimed watching it every now and then improved her coding efficiency by at least fifteen percent.

“Thanks, Kareena,” Liam said from the door. “How’s the algorithm work coming?”

She shot him a thumb’s up. “Almost there. I’ll have the new optimization numbers for you by the end of the day.” She glanced over at Miki as she approached the workstation. “As long as you two aren’t planning on making me redundant later this week,” she added with a smooth sip of her tea.

Liam and Miki shared a look. “No one can replicate what you do,” Liam assured her.

Kareena sighed, then smiled. “No, that was mean of me,” she said, looking at Liam not just like a boss but a friend. “I know we need this position filled. It’s critical to our funding. I just wish the finance people could trust us to handle this, rather than insisting we hire an outsider.”

Miki blanched. Over the last two years, the crew at Cygnus had become tighter than tight-knit: their personal and professional boundaries were almost a little too close, even before throwing Harper into the picture. The idea of adding a new person to the team—this close to their big rounds of funding, when they hoped to get picked up and acquired by one of the nine-hundred-pound gorillas of the tech world—was the first thing to add friction to the team in some time.

“Harper’s been doing video interviews on candidates while she’s in Japan wining and dining our future partners,” Miki said. “She thinks she’s found our rainmaker.”

Rainmaker was the informal term they’d come to use for the VP of Algorithm Development—the role that would make or break Cygnus’s acquisition. They’d been trying to find someone to fill it for months, with no success. One applicant had actually been hired for the role three weeks ago, only for Liam and Miki to realize after one disastrous coding session that the guy had fabricated every line of his resume.

Now they were running out of time.

“I see,” Kareena said guardedly. “I guess I just don’t love the idea of some new person coming in and taking over the ML stuff when we’re this close to closing.”

“Nobody likes change,” Liam said, putting a hand on Kareena’s shoulder. “Especially when it comes with a price tag this big. But every big tech firm I’ve talked to in the last six months says the same thing: no dedicated specialist, no deal.” He paused, fixing her with that look that made him such a beacon to the team. “I know you can do this, Kareena. Miki knows it, too. We just need someone in that position so the suits believe it, too.”

Miki watched the reservations melt from Kareena’s face. “I know, boss. I hope this new applicant works out for us.” She glanced at the baby panda, who was placidly eating a shoot of bamboo. “It would royally suck to work this hard and miss out on that big payday.”

“Everyone’s in this together,” Liam said confidently. “You’re not just employees. You’re stockholders. When this company rises, it’s going to send all of us into the stratosphere.”

Liam was exaggerating a little—but only a little. They’d split the shares of Cygnus between the team, but the married couple owned the controlling stake: Liam with 34% as the founder, Miki with 24% as the CFO and second-in-command. The remaining shares were split among the other employees, with a little left over to sweeten the pot for the eventual corporate investors.

Together, they couldn’t be outvoted, even if the entire team was against them.

When Liam and Miki agreed on something (as they always did), they bent the boardroom to their will. When they stood together, united, they were unstoppable.

Just like in real life.

Miki scanned the office as Liam gave Kareena the timetable on the interview, taking stock of her people. Josh—the only person in the building who’d known Liam even longer than her—sat hunched over his tablet near the windows, his stylus working in quick, practiced movements as he refined the UI on Cygnus’s eventual mobile app. He was the first person Liam and Miki hired when they founded the company, and his designs were a big part of what got people to sit up and take notice of them in the first place.

Of course, his flair for design didn’t apply to his own clothes. He came to work in the same outfit every day: black hoodie with the logo of a death metal band peeking out from the zipper, jeans, some old and battered Vans. He still dressed like the nerds he and Liam had both been in college, back when they’d been outsiders against the jocks and preppy kids while praying for some success with the opposite sex.

They’d pushed back their usual D&D game for the hookup with Harper on Saturday. Supposedly, Josh was bringing a girl with him next week. Miki hoped so; he deserved the kind of relationship she and Liam had.

At the coffee station, Suzanne stood pouring herself a mug, her red hair pulled into a messy bun. For the thousandth time since she’d come to work at Cygnus, Miki found herself grateful that Liam had taken a chance on this woman. A solid fifteen years older than Liam and with a background that was mostly in sales, Suzanne wasn’t what most people would have considered a slam-dunk tech employee. But she’d taken to the job the way a shark took to dolphin-infested waters, digging through the rest of the team’s work and identifying issues and redundancies even experienced coders overlooked. More than even Kareena or Josh, she was their secret weapon. The woman had an eye for detail.

She also had an eye for her boss.

Miki watched her sashay across the office with slightly too much wiggle, reaching Liam and throwing her arms around him in a way that just barely stayed on the right side of propriety.

“Morning, birthday boy!” Suzanne said, her hand patting Liam’s back two or three more times than Miki would have liked. “How does the big three-oh feel?”

“Doesn’t really feel all that different, Sue,” Liam said with a shrug. “I didn’t turn into a werewolf or anything, if that’s what you were expecting.”

“That’s because you’re still a baby,” she said, plucking a stray hair from the shoulder of Liam’s jacket. “All of you are babies. You’ve got so much ahead of you and you don’t even know it.” She stared into his eyes for a long moment, smiling. “I’m so proud of you.”

Liam’s the only person who doesn’t see it, Miki thought, shaking her head with an internal chuckle. Everyone else in the office stared at the pair, the way they’d stared through all of Suzanne’s hugs, casual touches and ‘jokes’.

Her husband stayed remarkably oblivious to the whole thing, which was totally adorable as far as Miki was concerned. But it was clear that Suzanne wanted her man. She’d probably have gone into the broom closet with him and given him a ‘birthday present’ if he’d been open to the idea. Which he wasn’t.

Liam was as faithful as rock. She’d had to push him into the threesome with Harper.

The poor guy didn’t even notice half the women in the office were in love with him.

And Miki didn’t mind keeping it that way.

There was something satisfying about appearing at Liam’s elbow mid-conversation and casually sliding an arm around his waist. Something she liked about the way Suzanne’s eyes widened the slightest fraction, backing down from a gesture that was both cute as hell and possessive.

My man, Miki thought, an echo of the arousal she’d felt earlier tingling down her spine. I’m the one who decides which girls he gets to fuck.

Wow. Something really was happening to her today. She usually didn’t swear like that outside the bedroom. Not even in her thoughts.

Suzanne got the message. “Back to work,” she said with mock-disappointment, holding up her mug. “Catch you two later.”

“Thanks, Sue.”

As soon as she retreated, Miki’s hand took Liam’s. “Meeting with Harper in five.”

He glanced at his watch. “Shit! Thanks, babe.”

She went up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss. “Anything for my boo,” she purred. “Besides, it’s my fault for scrambling you all up this morning.”

“Quiet about that,” Liam murmured against her mouth—but he was laughing.

“Oh, like they don’t already know.”

“You cornball.”

Miki broke the kiss. “You like it.”

He didn’t argue.

The conference room was its own space, set back from the rest of the office. Miki and Liam settled into chairs and flicked on the projector, the video call appearing on the big screen mounted to the wall. Harper sat cross-legged on the bed in her hotel suite, dressed professionally and looking almost impossibly perky for someone dealing with a fourteen-hour time difference. Her model-perfect smile filled the screen, making Miki’s heart skip a beat.

“There he is!” Harper practically sang. “Your birthday’s almost over on this side of the Pacific, but I guess over there it’s just getting started. You treating him okay, Miki?”

“He’s only a little bruised,” Miki said.

Harper grinned. “We’ll fix that this weekend,” she purred, shooting Liam a lewd look through the screen. “I cannot wait to get back to the US in a few days and see the two of you—”

“We should probably at least try to keep things professional,” Liam laughed.

Harper nodded. “Of course. I just keep thinking about it, that's all.”

“Status report?” Miki asked.

In the blink of an eye, Harper shifted into PR mode. “All good things,” she said, her eyes flickering to the side as she pulled up documents on her laptop screen. “The meeting with the private investors went swimmingly—they’re on the hook, and all we’ve got to do is reel them in. I’ve got a meeting with a head honcho of a keiretsu tomorrow, and the scuttlebutt on this side of the ocean is that he’s very interested in what Cygnus has to offer.” She leaned towards the camera, a giggle cutting through her polished persona. “I’m already looking at yachts. We are going to be obscenely rich.”

“We’re not there yet,” Liam said, taking Miki’s hand beneath the table. “We still need to bring this thing home.”

“Speaking of which!” Harper leaned back, clearing her throat. “I have wonderful news. I know it’s Liam’s birthday, and you were both probably planning on taking it easy today, but I’ve found him. I have never been so certain of anything in my life.” She paused. “Except you two, maybe.”

Miki watched Liam sit up straighter. “We have a candidate?”

“We have the candidate.” Harper’s enthusiasm was palpable. “He’s perfect. Like, you literally could not have designed a better person for the machine learning role in a lab. He has every core competency down pat, his resume’s got experience with not one but two of our potential acquirers working on exactly the kind of stuff we need. His references are almost too glowing, he’s ready to start pretty much immediately, and—”

Harper threw up her hands.

“He nailed the video interview,” she said, shaking her head with a look of amazement. “Swear to God, if this guy doesn’t pan out for the rainmaker role, you should put him over with me in sales. I know there’s a feeling around the office that we’re not going to ‘vibe’ with a new hire this late in the game, but this guy is going to slot in like he’s been with us for years.”

“It almost sounds like you’ve got a crush on him,” Liam teased.

Harper’s grin widened. “He’s charming—you’ll see.” She leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Besides, my dance calendar’s already booked for the next few weeks. Something tells me the three of us together isn’t going to be a one time thing—”

“This sounds too good to be true,” Miki blurted.

Both of them stopped, staring at her.

“Not us,” she corrected, though there was something that bothered her about that, too. Maybe it was the way Harper kept bringing it up unprompted. “This candidate. We’re sure he’s the real deal?”

“I vetted his resume myself,” Harper said with a touch of concern. “We can go over it if you want. I was going to suggest prepping you anyway—he’s available for an in-person interview this afternoon. If there’s any last-minute issues I couldn’t see through a camera, you two will be sure to spot them.”

“We’ve already had one fraud—it’s good thinking,” Liam said, patting Miki’s knee. “Put his resume up on the screen, Harper, we’ll double-check. What’s his name?”

Miki shook her head. Dimly, she realized what was setting her teeth on edge.

It was almost assuredly just distortion from the video call. Bad compression.

But something looked different about Harper’s eyes.

“It’s Blake,” Harper said, her face replaced with the document as the resume loaded. “Blake Donovan. He—”

Miki screamed.

The room went silent.

A second later, Harper’s face was back on the screen. “Miki? Jesus, are you okay?”

Miki’s knuckles gripped the side of the table so hard they turned white. Sweat—panic sweat, flop sweat, the kind of sweat you made in a dream when you realized all at once you’d been giving a presentation naked in front of your class all along—broke out across every inch of her skin. Her heart… oh Jesus…

“I’m… I’m okay,” she said, even as her mind screamed with a primal mammalian panic that she was not safe, that there was terrible danger in the room with her. “I’m sorry, I was just shocked. I know him.”

Harper’s brow furrowed. “You know Blake?” she asked.

Ice filled Miki’s gut. “He’s… we dated,” she blurted, suddenly unable to reliably make words. “Before Liam. A long, long time ago. He’s my ex…”

Suddenly Liam was there, holding her. “Babe, you’re shaking,” he said, amazed.

A stormcloud filled Harper’s face. “Did this guy hurt you?” she asked, an edge of steel in her voice. “Miki, did this motherfucker do something to you?”

Something about the anger in Harper’s tone steadied her. Made her feel safe.

When she looked at her friend in the video call, the strangeness around her eyes was gone. Just a video artifact, she told herself, trying to calm her rapid heart rate.

“You dated this guy?” Liam’s voice was careful, controlled, but with an edge of surprise as deep as Harper’s anger. “When? How long ago?”

Miki wracked her brain. “Years. It was way before I met you—back in college, I think.”

“You think?” That was Harper. “It must have been a long time ago if you can’t even remember if you’d graduated.” She paused, as if she’d gone too far. “I don’t remember him at all, so it must have been before you and I met.”

“It… it was,” Miki said. She wasn’t actually sure, but if she didn’t sound it, Harper was going to get even more upset. “It was five or six years before I met Liam, probably.”

“Was it serious?” Liam asked. “Babe, it’s okay. Calm down, please. I’m not upset.”

He wasn’t—she was. “It was… no, I don’t think…”

She was certain it wasn’t serious. Almost certain. Six months, at most.

So why were her hands shaking? Why was there sweat running down her back like she’d done ten laps around the building?

Why did looking at Blake Donovan’s smiling face make her feel like she wanted to crawl out of her skin?

“Let’s take a minute,” Liam said. “Let Miki calm down. This is obviously a pretty big shock.”

Harper looked like she wanted to ask more questions. And like, depending on the answers, she was going to cut her trip short and fly back to the USA to beat the shit out of the man who’d dared treat her best friend so badly she reacted like this to seeing his face.

“Put your head down, babe,” Liam said. “I’m going to get you a bottle of water, okay?”

“Alright,” she whispered. “Thank you, Liam.”

He grinned. “No worries. I’ll be right back.”

Harper was quiet for a few moments once Liam was gone. “Did he hit you?”

Miki shook her head. “I don’t… no.”

“Was he, like, psychologically abusive? Toxic? Did he cheat on you?”

“Harper,” Miki said, closing her eyes tight. “Please.”

“Sorry!” The blonde held up her hands. “I’m just trying to figure out how thermonuclear I want to go on this guy the next time I talk to him.”

Miki searched desperately through her memories, looking for everything connected to Blake Donovan. What she found was… threadbare. A vague impression of having gone on a few dates with him, back when she was job hunting right after college. She remembered a sushi restaurant, a bar—a bowling alley, maybe?

That sounded like the kind of cornball place she’d love to go on a date.

The only thing missing were the details. She knew she’d dated him, she knew they’d been together for a few months—more than two, less than six, she was almost sure of that—and then she’d broken up with him. No, he’d broken up with her. No, it was a mutual thing.

Had he really left that little of an impression on her?

The sex had been… fine, she thought. Nothing like what she had with Liam.

They just hadn’t been right for each other.

So why was every cell in her body screaming?

Liam came back with two bottles of water—one frozen, one not. He put the frozen one against the back of her neck and gave her the other to drink. “It’ll help,” he said.

She drank. It did.

When she finally felt good enough to sit up again, Harper and Liam were both watching her with concern.

“You okay, babe?” Liam asked.

God, he was so good. So kind. Him and Harper both—just good, decent people.

“I’m… I’m better,” she said, swallowing hard.

“Okay.” Liam let out an awkward laugh from the tension. “I thought we were going to have to call an ambulance.”

“Miki.” Harper’s voice was firm. “What did this guy do to you?”

She thought about it—really wracked her brain, looking for something that would have provoked a reaction like that inside of her. Something she could lay at Blake Donovan’s feet that would ensure they wouldn’t speak to him. Wouldn’t interview him.

Wouldn’t hire him—

Miki’s heart jumped in her chest.

“Babe.” Liam’s voice filled with empathy. “Look at me. Did this guy hurt you?”

She tried to think of something. She really did.

“No,” she said at last, something crumpling within her. “No, he wasn’t abusive or anything like that. We just… it didn’t work out. It was bad, somehow. A bad fit.”

“Then why do you look terrified?” Liam quietly asked.

That was the question.

And try as she might, Miki couldn’t answer it.

“I don’t know,” she said, grasping at anything she could use to justify the feeling. “Why would he apply here, after all these years? Why would he want to work with me? That’s weird, isn’t it? It’s weird.” She sounded like she was convincing herself, and she hated it. “It’s totally creepy.”

Harper’s mouth worked soundlessly. “Miki, Blake had no idea you worked at Cygnus when he applied,” she said, a guilty look flickering across her face. “Until our interview.”

Miki sat bolt upright. “You told him? About me?”

Why did that feel like such a betrayal?

“What did he say?” Liam asked, interested.

“Pretty much the same thing Miki did,” Harper explained. “They dated for four months, went out maybe a dozen times. Both of them decided it wasn’t a good fit.” An awkward smile tugged at her mouth. “I would’ve told you, except Blake said you probably wouldn’t even remember him. That it was so long ago, and you only knew each other for such a short time…”

“He must have made an impression, though,” Liam murmured.

“I don’t know,” Miki said. “Seeing his face again, I just… it felt…”

She couldn’t finish. For some reason, the words refused to come. Something about Blake Donovan’s bland, professional headshot made alarm bells ring in the most primordial parts of her brain.

Screaming danger danger danger in the middle of a bright office, surrounded by safe people who were all her friends.

Even though she couldn’t think of a single reason why she’d feel that way.

“It felt what, babe?” Liam asked.

Miki concentrated. “Wrong,” she said, the word slipping out through clenched teeth.

Another long silence. She could see Liam and Harper exchanging glances—after two years of working together every day, she could practically read their minds. Liam was concerned, and leaning towards cancelling the interview. Harper stood by, ready to trash the applicant the second she heard something toxic or abusive about Miki’s ex—but if she didn’t, she was going to start gently implying Miki was overreacting. Being irrational.

She was right about that last part.

There was nothing rational about her fear of Blake Donovan.

As if on cue, Liam took her hand. “Listen, if seeing an ex makes you uncomfortable, we won’t hire him. We’ll find somebody else.”

Harper blanched. “I would never in a million years tell Miki to do something she’s not one hundred percent comfortable with,” she said, hedging her words carefully. “But I would be remiss if I didn’t say this. I have interviewed dozens of candidates for this role. None of them have worked out. This is the most sure thing I’ve come across in a full year.”

Liam frowned. “Could he work remotely?”

“That’s not going to cut it,” Harper said, her grimace deepening. “There’s no way someone in that role could do their job from home. It wouldn’t be fair. At the very least, they’d have to have face-to-faces with Josh and Kareena—”

“No,” Miki whispered, grasping at the mist that dissolved before her eyes. “No face to face meetings.”

Harper nodded, misunderstanding her completely. “I agree. He has to be on site.”

Liam came to a decision. “No. Let Mr. Donovan know we won’t be moving forward.”

“Liam—”

“Something feels off about the guy,” Liam said firmly. “I have never seen my wife like this before, Harper. I don’t care how perfect his resume is. I trust her instincts more.”

The words should have filled her with relief. They were an escape hatch.

Instead, they felt like a stone sitting on her chest.

Our team, Miki thought, her gut churning with guilt. All of them are depending on this. If we don’t make the acquisition, all of this is for nothing. The late nights. The hard work.

Harper flying around the world scrounging up enough funds for them to simply make it to this point in the first place.

Millions of dollars hung in the balance. Not just for her, or Liam. For all of them.

And she was going to burn it all because she looked at her ex-boyfriend’s picture and had a mini panic attack? Because a relationship that ended half a decade ago made her so uneasy she forced her husband to torch his life’s work over it?

The relief that flooded her at the thought of Liam shredding Blake’s resume was almost indescribable. But the guilt…

She could see it in Harper’s eyes. She was trying not to say it.

But Miki was going to let them all down.

“Wait,” she said, hating the word as it left her lips. And yet it came out so, so much easier than that single ‘wrong’ she’d whispered to her husband. “Let me think for a second.”

“What’s there to think about?” Liam asked.

Miki turned to Harper. “He aced the interview?” she asked. “Nothing… nothing off?”

“He was completely professional,” she said. “I would have shut the interview down instantly if he wasn’t.”

“And he told you we dated?” That still felt wrong.

“It wasn’t a large portion of our conversation,” Harper said. “He discovered it while I was showing him the org chart—it had your name and photo on it.” She paused, as if wondering to say anything more. “He mentioned that you were one of the smartest people he’d ever met,” she said. “He did not seem surprised that you’d become so successful.”

Miki’s stomach did a flip at that. “Okay. So he won’t be shocked if he sees me.” Her mind worked feverishly, the alarm bells in the back of her mind quieting a bit. “Which means if he does anything weird, anything off, that’s on him.”

“What are you suggesting, babe?” Liam asked.

“I’m saying…” Miki trailed off, her gut telling her to say anything other than the words about to leave her lips. “Let’s do the interview.”

Liam’s brows rose. “You sure?”

She laced her fingers through his. “If you’re with me, I’ll be fine,” she said, trying not to sound like she was convincing herself. “If he can be… professional, I can be professional, too.” She grit her teeth, concentrating. “But if he does anything at all. Anything weird.”

“Then he’s gone,” Liam said. “I don’t even care if he aces the interview, babe. I want you to know that. One word from you and this all stops now. If you get any kind of bad vibes off him… we don’t do it.”

One word. She wanted to give Liam that one word so badly.

But it would ruin everything. They had no time to find another candidate.

I’m scared, she thought. I’m terrified. Please, one of you see that. One of you has to tell me it doesn’t matter whether I say yes—

“It’s fine,” she snapped, her nails digging into her palms. “We’ll do the interview. I can do that much, at least. Then we’ll see what happens.”

She wanted them to tell her no.

But how could they, when they trusted her so much?

Harper sighed with obvious relief. “Alright. I’ll set up the interview for this afternoon. I’ll add it to both of your calendars.” She paused. “Is there anyone else who should be there, or just you two?”

Nobody, Miki thought. They should all stay away.

“Kareena,” she said. “She expressed an interest in vetting the candidate.”

“Making sure he knows his stuff, huh?” Harper laughed, some of the tension in the room evaporating. “That’s good. I’ll shoot her an invite, too.” She did so, then glanced through the screen at Miki. “If any of you detect even a hint of inappropriate behavior from this guy, just ping me. I’ll make sure he never sets foot in the building again.”

“Thank you,” Miki said.

“I mean it. We’re business partners, but you’re my best friend.” Her expression softened. “I’m really sorry that got so intense, Miki. Are we good? No hard feelings?”

She nodded. “You’re just doing your job.”

“Awesome.” She smiled. “And we’re still on for Saturday, right? Because I did not spend an entire afternoon lingerie shopping in Tokyo just to put it on at home alone and stare at myself in the mirror…”

Liam’s brows shot skyward. “Lingerie?”

“Oh yeah. You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” Harper grinned. “And so is your wife. I cannot wait to forget about all this work shit for a weekend and focus on having some fun with you two.” Her eyes—perfectly normal, Miki noted—sparkled with mischief. “You two are not going to know what hit you.”

After a bit more flirting, they signed off. Miki felt just the slightest bit colder as the projector switched off, leaving her and Liam alone in the conference room.

“That was… intense,” he said, taking her hand. “I thought we kinda screwed the pooch there for a minute with Harper.”

“She’s fine.”

“I wouldn’t care if she wasn’t,” Liam said. “You’re what matters to me, Miki.” He paused, looking her up and down. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said. The lie felt a little easier every time she said it—she was even starting to believe it. “I overreacted. I panicked. It was really, really stupid.”

“It’s not stupid at all,” Liam said. “Clearly, there’s something you didn’t like about this Blake guy. Whatever it is, if we see it in the meeting, he’s out of contention.” He met her eyes, his gaze filling with love and devotion. “Even if you’re the only one who sees it, Miki. Harper, Josh, the others—they’re great. I rely on them a lot. But you’re the only one I trust completely. Always. It’s you and me, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He grinned. “And if we do hire him, I’ll keep him as far away from you as possible. But I don’t think we’re gonna hire him.”

“No?”

Liam shook his head. “There’s something weird about this. If it doesn’t feel right to you, it doesn’t feel right to me.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s just an hour-long interview. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

He pulled her into a hug.

It made her feel so safe she almost managed to forget the terror.

Just an interview, Miki thought. If something’s wrong—and something WILL be wrong, I can feel it—I’ll tell Liam after. He supports me. He loves me. This isn’t a big deal.

We’re going to be fine.

That’s what she told herself.

But when she closed her eyes, the feeling of being underwater returned. Even here—in the arms of the man she loved, in the middle of her kingdom—she could feel waves closing over her head. Could feel herself sinking, gasping, clawing desperately at a surface that grew further and further away with each passing moment.

And somewhere deep in the darkness, down so far that not even the strongest and most desperate person could have ever made it back to the air before choking, was a voice.

She couldn’t make out the words it spoke.

But she knew, in a part of her brain her subconscious had been desperately trying to claw open from the moment she saw her ex’s smiling face, that she’d heard them before.

And that when she had, she’d done exactly what they’d told her to do.