The call connected before Liv could ask what Dominic meant.
He turned slightly toward the rain-darkened window, phone pressed to his ear.
For the first time all evening, his posture looked less like that of the unshakable Dominic Cain who could walk into a hostile negotiation and somehow make everyone else feel underdressed, and more like a man making a decision he had postponed for too long.
“Sorry for calling this late,” he said.
“I need a reporting change processed first thing tomorrow.
Liv stays in the same role, same compensation, same authority.
She just won’t report directly to me anymore.”
Liv stopped breathing for a second.
Dominic listened.
“No, nothing happened.
That’s the point.
I want it documented before anything can happen.”
Her stomach dropped.
He glanced at her.
“Send me the confirmation when it’s done.
Thanks.”
He ended the call.
The room suddenly felt smaller than it had five minutes earlier.
Liv stared at him.
“What did you just do?”
Dominic set his phone facedown on the small desk.
“Changed your reporting line.”
“I heard that part.
Why?”
He exhaled slowly.
This was a man Liv had watched negotiate contracts worth more money than she expected to earn in several lifetimes.
She had seen him answer hostile questions from investors without blinking.
She had watched him calmly dismantle presentations that had taken entire departments weeks to prepare.
She had never seen him search for words.
Until now.
“Because you were right,” he said.
“About what?”
“I’m your boss.”
Liv folded her arms.
“You discovered that tonight?”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“No.
I’ve been painfully aware of it for three years.”
Thunder rolled beyond the glass.
Liv stared at him, unsure whether she had heard correctly.
Dominic lowered himself back into the armchair, but he didn’t relax.
“You asked why I’m changing it.
The honest answer is because this room changed something.”
Liv’s heart started beating faster.
“Nothing happened in this room.”
“Exactly.”
She frowned.
Dominic rubbed a hand over his jaw.
“When I told you there was one room and one bed, you looked at me like accepting it might destroy something you’d spent years protecting.
And I knew exactly what that something was.”
Liv looked toward the bed because looking at him suddenly felt dangerous.
“Professional boundaries aren’t exactly mysterious.”
“No.
But yours aren’t only professional.”
She snapped her gaze back to him.
Dominic didn’t smile this time.
