Elliot Reeves misses the bowl by the door and laughs like a man already packing a box. He is thirty-six, glasses sliding, good at the work and hopeless at the politics. Northaven has used his softness for six years. Martin Hale, Derek Lang, and a quiet list in People are preparing to throw it out.

Zara Reeves does not allow that. She is thirty-four, brown-skinned, a wife who cooks keema and folds sad socks, and a woman who learned in other rooms how to make a powerful man sign. She offers to host Client Week so she can stand in the building without looking like a wife who wandered in for no reason. Hale has been staring since July. She turns the stare into a tool.

Part 1 follows the first locked door, the dinner, the hotel two blocks west, and the Monday morning when Elliot is called in and comes out holding a lead like someone handed him a baby. Part 2 follows the starved book, the second invoice, one night at the Thompson on written terms, a panel in three weeks, and the text that says the shop is closed.

Through both parts the marriage stays the point: pickle notes, burnt rice, a plant with no direct reports, the hall light left on, the wife mouth after the other mouth has been washed off. Zara will be ugly for him. She will not stay in the hotel. He will still ask if she wants him if the promotions stop. She wanted him when he spilled lassi on her sandals.

This bundle collects The Man Who Missed the Bowl and More Costs More. Contemporary erotic fiction set in Toronto.