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me.”
    Smiling, Tionne shook her head. “Actually, I don’t recall that particular clause at all.”
    “Your memory is faulty.”
    “Right. Keep telling yourself that.” Tionne set her cup down and gestured to the paper. “Hand me the entertainment section, please. I heard whispers of a food festival this weekend.”
    Misha riffled through the paper until he came to the section she’d requested. “Find out where it is, and we’ll go.”
    If she hadn’t already planned on going with him, she might have given him a hard time about assuming, but since he was right, she let it slide. They sat in silence for the next few minutes, she engrossed in her section of the newspaper and he in his. It was a comfortable silence, the type that was present only after years clocked with one another. There was a feeling of rightness about it, a feeling this was the way it was supposed to be that went right to her core, and it wasn’t until Tionne heard her alarm going off in her bedroom that she realized how much time had passed.
    “Good Lord,” she said as she set the entertainment pages down. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”
    Misha laid his section on the table, then glanced down at his watch. “It’s not that late.”
    Tionne looked over at the clock on her microwave. “It’s after eight.”
    “You don’t have to be to work until nine.”
    “I still have to get ready.”
    “I don’t have to be in until this afternoon. Why don’t we take a mental health break and go out for breakfast?”
    “You, take half a day off?” Tionne couldn’t hide her surprise. “Who are you, and what have you done with Misha?”
    “So funny.”
    “I’m serious. You’d work on your deathbed.”
    “I’m not skipping the entire day. Just the morning, and after your night, you might want to think about taking it easy too.”
    “I’m fine, and as much as I would love to live like a Real Housewife , I have a job.”
    “I know your boss,” Misha said drily. “I think he’ll let it slide.”
    “I don’t know. The company might fall apart if I’m not there to stare into space and play with my stapler for seven point five hours. I mean, really, if I’m not there to push my pencil, who will?”
    A small smile played at his lips. “I’m sure your pencil could manage just fine…this once.”
    “I’m sure it could manage just fine all the time.” Tionne sat back in her chair a bit and stretched. “I’m not exactly saving the world down there.”
    “Is there another department you’d rather be in?”
    “No, I’m just saying that even though a trained monkey could do my job, and I’m sure my supervisor doesn’t see me as anything other than a soulless automaton, it still feels wrong to just take the morning off because I have connections. Nepotism is illegal, right?”
    “No, just immoral, but I don’t let that sort of thing stop me from getting what I want.”
    Tionne snorted. “Don’t I know it.”
    “Besides, your supervisor can think anything he wants, as long as he doesn’t say it.” There was a hint of warning in his voice that spoke volumes. Tionne was willing to bet that if her supervisor did have any problems with her, he would rather take it to his grave than take it to Misha.
    “I’m surprised you’re allowing him to have his own thoughts.”
    “It’s a temporary thing. I have my lawyers trying to figure out a way around that as we speak.” His tone was deathly serious, but there was a twinkle in his eyes.
    “You’re so silly.”
    “So is that a yes?”
    “About?” She was confused now.
    “Breakfast?”
    “Umm.” She glanced back at the clock, then over at Misha. Boring job or time with the man she was crazy about? Job. Man. Job. Man. It wasn’t even a close vote. “Yes, but only because you’re twisting my arm.”
    “Why can’t you give in to me this easily all the time?”
    “Where would be the fun in that?”
    “I assure you, I would find it fun.”
    She didn’t believe that