Zane
The door shut behind Gina Lombardi, and the office felt emptier for it.
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the faint outline of her handprint on the polished wood where she’d steadied herself before standing. Small, elegant, but steady.
She had surprised me. No—she had impressed me.
I’d expected nerves, hesitation, the kind of vague ambition most applicants recited like they were reading off the back of a cereal box. But Gina had come at me with fire. With grit. With the truth, stripped of pretension.
Hungry. Determined. Fierce in the way only someone who had clawed her way up from nothing could be.
And God help me, it made me want her even more.
I pressed my fingers against my temple, forcing the thought back into its box. She was my employee. A new one, at that. If anyone
