She needed the job. That was the respectable reason she sat down across from a man who already had a girlfriend and a title.

Makayla had spent weeks living on applications and pride. Then the interview started going off-script, and she let it. She asked the questions a candidate is not supposed to ask. She put her hand on his while the résumé still sat between them. She turned a locked office into the first honest room she had been in since the offer died.

What she wants is not subtle. She wants his mouth, his attention, the heat he has been calling loyalty. She wants him to stop pretending the look he gave her was an accident. When his phone rings in the middle of it, she does not freeze. She makes the lie cost him something. She becomes the girl on this side of the call while he tells another woman he loves her.