The recycled air of Chase Xander's corner office hummed with silence, a stark contrast to the verbal sparring that had filled it just moments before. The signed contract lay between them on the obsidian desk, a truce written in black ink.
Linnea Jolie forced the corners of her mouth upward, a perfect, practiced arc that didn't touch her dark eyes. She extended her hand, her movements economical. "A pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Xander."
His blue eyes, the color of a frozen Seattle Lake, swept over her face, missing nothing. He took her hand, his grip unsurprisingly firm, his skin cool. "You are a formidable negotiator, Ms. Jolie." His tone was flat, giving away nothing. Jerk, she thought, the word echoing clearly in her own mind as she maintained her placid expression.
His grip tightened almost imperceptibly. "You got some nerves, woman," he stated, his voice dropping, the temperature in the room seeming to plummet with it. His expression was colder than she'd ever seen, a mask of utter indifference that somehow felt more threatening than any scowl.
Linnea's smile faltered for a microsecond before she locked it back into place. "I suppose it takes one to know one."
He didn't release her hand. Instead, he used it to pull her closer, just an inch, but it was enough to breach the professional distance she had so carefully maintained. The scent of his crisp cologne, something clean and expensive with a sharp, woody undertone, invaded her space. Her heart gave a hard, single thud against her ribs.
"Is that what you were thinking?" he murmured, his gaze dropping to her lips. "When you shook my hand with that plastic smile. That I'm a jerk?"
Her composure finally fractured. Her real smile-a small, shocked 'o' of surprise-replaced the fake one. "How did you...?"
"You talk fast when you're nervous. Apparently, you think fast, too." He finally let her hand go, only to trail his fingertips over the back of it, a whisper of a touch that sparked a trail of fire up her arm. "Loudly."
She should leave. She should snatch the contract, walk out, and never look back. But her feet were rooted to the plush carpet. A strange, thrilling vulnerability washed over her, the kind that comes from being truly seen, even by someone you profess to dislike. His intense focus, once an irritant, now felt like a laser pinpointing her very core.
Chase didn't break eye contact as he slowly, deliberately, walked around the desk. He stopped mere inches from her, his tall frame blocking the view of the city skyline. He didn't touch her anywhere else. He just... looked. His eyes traveled from her eyes, down to the pulse hammering in her throat, to the way her white blouse rose and fell with her suddenly shallow breaths.
