I hadn’t bothered with the suit tonight. No Tom Ford precision, no tie choking my throat into restraint. Just a black T-shirt clinging to my chest, sweatpants hanging loose at my hips, hair shoved back with restless hands until it stuck wrong at the crown. I’d been pacing before she walked in, every circuit of the office tighter, more jagged. I didn’t look like the Carter they feared in boardrooms. I looked like the man beneath it, bare, raw, a storm braced inside four walls.
The door opened.
Amber stepped into the office, and the coil in my gut twisted tighter.
Her hair was loose, falling in soft waves that framed a face marked by shadows under her eyes. She looked thinner somehow, her shoulders tight with exhaustion she didn’t try to hide. A simple black dress clung to her like it had
