Off the Record

The rain got you in the thirty seconds between the car and the door. Now you’re soaked to the bone, standing in the foyer of a penthouse that costs more per night than most people make in a month. Water pools beneath your shoes, spreading slowly across imported marble.

You look down and immediately regret the white blouse.

Rain has turned it nearly transparent, the wet fabric clinging to your breasts and leaving very little to the imagination. The pink lace bra underneath isn’t helping. Neither are your nipples, already hard beneath the soaked lace.

The outfit had been a calculated choice when you left the apartment. White. Lace. Just enough cleavage to make someone look twice while still pretending you hadn’t meant for them to.

It made you feel fucking dangerous.

You needed that tonight.

Because you needed this to go well. Desperately.

Thirty-three floors up, the city smears gold behind the storm. The penthouse the internet swears is haunted stretches out in front of you, all dark corners, floor-to-ceiling windows, and fuck-you money.

You have one night before the new investor seals the place off. One night to find something worth writing about. Something good enough to finally put your name where it belongs at The Meridian: above the fold and above everyone who ever doubted you.

You drop your bag by the door and take in the place.

No ghosts yet.

Just you, a very expensive penthouse, and a blouse currently showing off your tits.

“You have got to be kidding me,” a voice says from the living room.

You’d know that voice from the depths of hell. Which is fitting, since you’ve always suspected that’s where Julian Vance crawled out of. Five years of hating him, and somehow the sound of his voice still manages to piss you off on contact.

Julian is stretched out on the sunken couch with a laptop balanced across his thighs, notes spread over the coffee table and his phone beside them. He looks like he’s been here for hours. Comfortable. Working. Completely unaware that this is your exclusive he’s currently contaminating.

Then he looks up.

Of course he’s wearing the glasses.

Dark hair falling over his forehead. Sleeves rolled to his elbows. Broad shoulders filling out a button-down that probably looked appropriately boring on the hanger and considerably less so on him.

You hate his shirts.

You hate his glasses.

You especially hate the combination.

His eyes move over you, and for once, Julian Vance has absolutely nothing to say.

It lasts maybe two seconds.

You enjoy both of them.

Then he closes the laptop and sets it aside. “What the hell are you doing here, Reyes?”

You stare at him. “What the hell am I doing here?”

His gaze drops again, quick but definitely not accidental this time, taking in the soaked white blouse and the pink lace beneath it before returning to your face.

“Though I can see you came dressed to negotiate.”

Heat crawls up your neck. You cross your arms, then immediately realize that only makes your tits look better.

Fuck it. Let him look.

“The Chronicle actually let you out of the building?” you say. “I figured Halloran kept you on a leash.”

His jaw tightens.

Barely.

But you catch it.

Good.

“I booked this place three weeks ago,” he says, closing the laptop and getting to his feet. “This is my story, Reyes. So you can turn around, get back in the elevator, and go chase whatever fluff The Meridian has you on this week.”

You pull up the confirmation on your phone and hold it out. “That’s cute. I booked it too.”

His eyes flick to the screen.

Then back to you.

“It’s double-booked, genius. And since I’m already wet, annoyed, and thirty-three floors up, I’m not fucking leaving.”

One corner of his mouth lifts.

“We’ll see.”

He’s close now. Close enough that you catch the clean scent of his cologne beneath the rain. Close enough to see the droplets still clinging to his dark hair.

Then his hand lands at the small of your back.

You go still for half a second.

In all the years you’ve known Julian Vance, he has never touched you.

Not once.

His palm is warm through your wet blouse, fingers spread low across your back as he turns you toward the private elevator.

Your body responds before your pride can stop it.

Asshole.

“Don’t you dare put me in that elevator,” you snap, planting your heels.

His fingers flex against your back.

“Watch me.”

That should piss you off.

It does piss you off.

It just isn’t the only thing you feel.

You end up at the elevator doors anyway, arguing the entire way. Your back hits the cold metal, and Julian stops in front of you.

“You are such an arrogant asshole.”

“And you’re still leaving.”

“The fuck I am.”

You jab a finger into his chest and immediately discover that his boring button-down has been withholding information. There is a lot more Julian Vance under your palm than you expected.

Not that your palm should be on him.

You pull it back.

“I have out-reported you every year since Kingsley.”

“You have never once out-reported me.”

He plants one hand against the elevator door beside your head and leans in.

Your next insult disappears.

He’s taller than you remember. Or maybe you’ve just never had him this close before. Close enough that you have to tip your chin to glare at him. Close enough to notice the faint shadow along his jaw and the way his eyes look without an entire conference table between you.

His gaze drops to your mouth.

Just for a second.

Your stomach tightens.

Then he gives you that smug fucking look again.

“You get attention, Reyes. Don’t confuse that with being better than me.”

There it is.

You shove your palm against his chest. “You think people read my work because they want to fuck me?”

His eyes drag over your face before settling on yours.

“I think those are two completely separate reasons to read your work.”

Oh.

Asshole.

The lights cut out before you can answer him.

The elevator dies against your back, and the warm glow of the penthouse disappears so completely that for a second you can’t see anything at all. Even the constant hum of the building is gone. All that’s left is rain beating against thirty-three floors of glass and Julian’s breathing, much closer than it has any right to be.

Neither of you moves.

His hand is still planted beside your head, his body only inches from yours, and somewhere during the argument your palm ended up flat against his chest. You can feel the steady rise and fall of it beneath your hand. The heat of him. The hard line of muscle under his shirt.

You should probably take your hand off him.

For some reason, you don’t.

Without being able to see him, every other detail seems sharper. His breath brushes your cheek. His cologne is mixed with the clean scent of rain, and the hand that had been on your back only moments ago is suddenly much harder to forget.

Lightning flashes across the windows, flooding the penthouse in white for barely a second.

Long enough to catch Julian looking down.

Not at your face.

His attention has dropped to your soaked blouse and the pink lace clearly visible beneath it. This time there’s nothing quick or polite about the way he looks at you. For once, Julian Vance seems to have forgotten whatever smug thing he was about to say.

Then darkness swallows the room again.

You can’t see his expression anymore, but you hear the slow breath he takes before he finally speaks.

“Fuck.”

It’s quiet enough that you’re not entirely sure you were supposed to hear it.

To be fair, your breasts are spectacular. You’ve always thought so.

Unfortunately, Julian staring at them gives your brain permission to return the favor.

It drags up a memory from Kingsley you would very much like to have deleted by now. You were nineteen, still stupid enough to have a crush on him, when you opened a dorm room door without knocking and found Julian completely naked on the other side.

You should have closed the door.

Instead, you stared.

Not subtly, either.

Julian had turned toward you, and your eyes had gone down before good judgment could intervene. Five years later, you can still remember exactly what you saw.

Which is fucking ridiculous. You forget passwords you created yesterday. You once left your phone in an Uber for six hours.

But Julian Vance’s dick?

Apparently your brain filed that under critical information, retain indefinitely.

And since you’re already standing here thinking about it, you might as well admit the truly irritating part.

He had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about.

If you’re standing in a blackout thinking about Julian Vance naked, you need to get laid.

Immediately.

Preferably by someone you don’t hate.

Because there is no version of your life where you sleep with Julian. College crush or not, five years of professional warfare should be enough to kill whatever stupid part of you still remembers exactly what he looks like without clothes.

Apparently, it isn’t.

Julian clears his throat and finally steps away, putting enough space between you that your brain starts functioning again. A second later, the glow of his phone cuts through the darkness, lighting his face from below.

You blink at him.

“Could you look any creepier?”

His mouth twitches. “There she is.”

“Fuck you.”

Something about his expression changes.

Only for a second.

Then he turns the phone away from his face and toward the dead elevator panel. “Tempting, Reyes. But we have bigger problems.”

Julian turns his phone toward the elevator panel and presses the call button. Nothing happens.

“Power’s out,” he says, some of the smugness finally gone from his voice. “Looks like the whole floor.”

“So we take the stairs.” You start toward the emergency exit, but Julian catches your wrist before you make it two steps.

“Reyes, the emergency lights are out too.”

Your attention drops to his hand wrapped around your wrist. Apparently he notices at the same time, because his fingers loosen before he lets you go. You ignore the warmth left behind and look toward the stairwell instead.

“It’s thirty-three floors,” he continues, pointing his phone toward the exit. “In the dark, during a storm, with no idea what else in this building lost power.”

“I have a phone.”

“You have heels.”

You glance down at them and immediately regret it. Four inches, narrow heel, gorgeous enough that you’d been willing to suffer for them when suffering meant an evening of reporting and not thirty-three flights of stairs in the dark.

When you look back up, Julian is trying not to smile.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face did.”

Thunder cracks hard enough to rattle the windows, followed by a flash of lightning that briefly illuminates the penthouse. Rain lashes the glass, and beyond it the city has almost disappeared behind the storm.

You look from the dead elevator to the emergency exit and reluctantly accept that, for once in his irritating life, Julian has a point. “So what are you suggesting? We just stay here?”

“Until the power comes back.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

His gaze settles on you, and there’s a pause before he answers. Not a long one, but long enough for you to remember where those eyes were a few minutes ago and the quiet fuck you’re still pretending you didn’t hear.

“Then I guess we’re spending the night together.”

Of fucking course you are.

Five years of making sure you’re never alone with Julian Vance, and now you have an entire penthouse, a storm with no intention of letting up, and one very long night ahead of you.

This is going to be a fucking disaster.