Accidentally Yours (Merffy Kizzmet) novel Chapter 236

Chapter 236

That landed: a ripple under glass, but it landed. His nostrils flared, too quick to hide.

“You talk like this to everyone?” he asked.

“Yeah Lucy, pretty much,” she said.

He stepped closer again; the obsession showed now, thin as a wire under the skin. “I could take it all out,” he said softly. “The fear. The roots. The memory that keeps you from being useful.”

“You mean the spine?” she said. “That’s welded.”

“Useful,” he repeated. “To something more than your appetites.”

“Oh, we’re talking appetites,” she said brightly. “How brave.”

The jaw tightened. The polite smile returned. “We’ll begin with intake. Vitals, baselines, simple answers. Composure earns accommodation. Defiance earns longer conversations.”

…

“You do love your euphemisms,” she said. “What’s the one for dog collar? ‘Leadership seminar‘?”

“You’re reckless, Lola.”

“No,” she said. “I’m bored.”

“You don’t frighten me.”

“I’m not aiming for fright. I’m aiming for consequences.”

He looked over her shoulder at nothing and everything, the performance of a man in charge of a system, and when he looked back, he’d decided to be kind.

“You can still be saved.”

“By you?” she said. “Lucy, you can barely keep yourself from vibrating.”

He actually smiled. Quick. Crooked. Human and terrible. “I wondered if you’d notice.”

“I notice when men want something too much,” she said. “They start mistaking the room for consent.”

He absorbed it. He was very good at absorbing. He set a scalpel down with careful fingers, like not making noise was the same as not being dangerous.

“You’re going to work with us,” he said, final as a signature.

“You’re going to find synonyms for ‘no‘ exhausting,” she said.

“Last chance to be sensible.”

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10:05 Thu, Oct 23 MAR

Chapter 236

“Sensible’s for people who don’t know the exits.”

“Do you?” he asked.

She glanced at the vents new filters), the mirrored panel (not a wall), the false door to her right ca llar), the camera tucked into the corner (his favorite angle, it shaves the jaw). She didn’t gift him the map. She gifted him a smile.

“Enough.” he said.

“Of what?”

“Amateur theater.” He gestured toward the door with a hand that wanted to be a blade. “You’ll meet my team, Boundaries, expectations, tolerances.”

“Sounds like a book club,” she said. “Will there be snacks?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He’d rehearsed the next twenty minutes all week. He’d been waiting for her voice to fill the white room so he could cut it to size.

He turned for the door.

Lola tilted her head, studying him the way you look at an insect that thinks it invented crawling.

“You know what I always hated about your kind, Lucy?”

He didn’t take the bait, not out loud. A flick of the eyes, that’s all she needed.

“You polish everything,” she said. “The floors, the words, the stories. Even your guilt gets a wax coat.”

Her smile sharpened. “I was nine when I learned that people can sound rich while selling their kid. You were there. You shook my hand. I remember the gloves.”

That landed. Quick and clean.

Lucian’s composure stuttered for half a breath, something bitter flickered and vanished behind his eyes.

She leaned back against the straps, casual, like this was brunch.

“Tell me, Lucy. When you walk those same halls now, do they still smell like bleach and moral superiority?”

He inhaled once, slow, controlled, but it still came out wrong.

“Enjoy your nostalgia,” she said sweetly. “I’ll make sure you choke on it later.”

He paused at the door, hand white–knuckled on the handle.

“Don’t call me that again.”

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