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“No,” he replies.

“I’m making sure scheduling isn’t the reason you say no.”

That makes me smile despite myself.

“And if I still say no?” I ask.

Ross’s mouth shifts slightly. “Then I go without you.”

“Very gracious,” I say.

“I have my moments,” he replies.

He opens the concealed door and gestures toward the passage.

“Come on. I’ll get you back before anyone starts wondering where we disappeared to.”

I step through first. “That would probably be wise.”

The passage is dimmer on the way back, the floor lights casting narrow bands of gold across the stone. As Ross begins to walk ahead, he reaches back without looking. I place my hand in his. He closes his fingers around mine and leads me through the turns in silence.

By the time we reach the hidden door near the east stairwell, my pulse has finally started to settle. Ross opens it and lets go of my hand before we step back into the corridor. The distance between us returns almost automatically, but my body is still carrying the evidence of what happened on the other side of that wall.

I smooth my dress once more and look at him. His expression is composed again, but his eyes are not. That thought makes me smile as I head back toward the library.

Chapter Nine

Ross

Logistics for the upcoming Geneva trip has managed to rearrange half of my week. I’m in my office at Kensington Holdings reviewing the revised travel schedule with my assistant when I move a dinner with one of our institutional partners from Wednesday evening to Tuesday afternoon. The meeting itself matters; the timing does not. A second commitment shifts to Thursday morning, leaving the evenings in Geneva largely untouched.

My assistant looks down at the calendar on her tablet.

“Do you want me to keep Wednesday night open as well?”

“Yes,” I say. “Unless something genuinely urgent comes up.”

She makes the change without comment. I know exactly what I’m doing. The pattern is obvious enough that I stop pretending it is accidental.

My assistant leaves a few minutes later, and I have barely reopened the Geneva briefing when Sebastian walks into my office without knocking.

“Do you ever use the door properly?” I ask.

“No,” he replies as he drops into the chair opposite my desk.

“I came about Geneva.”

I close the file. “What about it?”

“Van Alder confirmed the Friday meeting,” Sebastian says.

“They want the revised structure before you sit down with them, and Matthias Keller is joining from Zurich.”

“That’s fine. Voss already has the latest draft.”

Sebastian nods. “Good. Just make sure Keller doesn’t turn the distribution discussion into another equity conversation. He’s been pushing it for months.”

“I know.”