I grabbed her arm and pulled her to the corner of the break room, lowering my voice to a whisper. "Jenny, you know what this place really is, right?"
She rolled her eyes. "Mahogany desks and offshore accounts, honey. Very fancy, very profitable."
"It’s the blood behind the balance sheets that keeps people in line," I said, my voice dropping even lower. "This isn’t just some financial firm. You know whose money we’re really moving."
Jenny’s expression sobered. The Irish families that controlled half the city’s legitimate businesses—and all of its illegitimate ones. This place was their front, their way of cleaning money that came from sources no one asked about.
"Which is exactly why you need to tell me what you did to get on Roman Creed’s radar," she said, matching my whisper. "We all know better than?—"
"I need to check something," I interrupted, my mind having a vivid, terrible flashback to the single naughty text I sent last night. My hands shook as I pulled out my phone.
Please let it be Jeremy.
Please let it be Jeremy who didn’t respond to my incredibly inappropriate message about what I wanted him to do to me against his kitchen counter.
I scrolled through my messages from last night.
Wine. Bad decisions. And?—
Oh. Fuck. Me.
"Cassie? You’re scaring me."
I stared at my phone screen. The name at the top of my filthy, wine-fueled confession wasn’t Jeremy.
It was Roman Creed.
My boss. My intimidating, gorgeous, rumored-to-have-mafia-connections boss. The man who could fire me with a single word. The man who probably had people disappear for less than accidentally sexting him detailed descriptions of what I wanted done to my body.
"Jenny," I whispered, my voice barely audible. "I think I’m going to die."
"What? Why?"
I turned my phone toward her. Her eyes widened as she read the recipient's name, then grew impossibly larger as she glanced down to see the message itself.
"Holy shit, Cassie. You sexted Roman Creed?"
"I didn’t mean to! I thought I was texting Jeremy!"
"What all did you write?" She grabbed my phone before I could stop her, and I watched her face transform from confusion to shock to something that looked like impressed horror.
"Jesus Christ, Cassie. This is… this is detailed. You mentioned handcuffs. And something about begging? And you definitely described what you wanted him to do with his?—"
"JENNY." I snatched my phone back. "Stop talking. Just… stop."
"Okay, okay." She held up her hands in surrender, but she was still grinning. "But seriously, Cassie. This might not be as bad as you think."
"How could it possibly not be that bad? I essentially sent my boss a detailed fantasy about him fucking me senseless!"
"Because Roman Creed doesn’t strike me as the type to call HR about inappropriate workplace communications. He strikes me as the type to handle things… personally."
My stomach dropped. "That’s supposed to make me feel better?"
"Look, you’ve seen how he looks at you during meetings. The man is interested. You just… accelerated the timeline."
I stared at her. "You think he’s interested in me?"
"Cassie, honey, you’re brilliant, gorgeous, and you make his coffee exactly how he likes it every morning. Plus, you’re the only person in this office who doesn’t flinch when he walks into a room."
