Page 133 of His Good Girl

I held her gaze for a second. Then I nodded.

Benjamin walked me to the elevator. He pressed the down button and stood beside me in the quiet. For once, he did not speak immediately. The doors opened and I stepped inside, then turned back. He stood in the hall, tablet tucked under one arm, tie perfectly straight, face tight with all the worries he had decided to carry because he cared too much to put them down.

“You’re really with me?” I asked.

He looked offended. “Unfortunately.”

“Why?”

He sighed. “Because someone has to be.”

The doors began to close.

Then his hand shot out, stopping them.

“And because,” he added, voice dry as ash, “for all the catastrophic optics, ethical landmines, sentimental obligations, and potential legal exposure, one does not say no to Avery Hale looking at him like that unless one is dead, and you are many things, Callum, but dead is apparently no longer one of them.”

The doors slid shut before I could answer.

My phone buzzed once more before I reached the lobby.

Avery:I’m in my pjs now.

I looked at the message until the elevator opened.

Then I typed back.

Me:Good girl.

I should not have sent it.

I sent it anyway.

By the time I stepped into the lobby, the scandal was no longer theoretical. There were photos, enemies, witnesses, and awoman upstairs in a small apartment with a locked door and my name glowing on her phone.

The company was at risk.

My reputation was at risk.

Avery was at risk, which mattered the most.

And still, as I walked out to the waiting car and the driver opened the door, I understood the most dangerous truth of all.

I was not trying to stop anymore.

I was only trying to make sure that when the whole thing caught fire, I was standing close enough to shield her from the worst of the heat.

CHAPTER 16

Avery

By late afternoon on Sunday, I had spent approximately forty-six hours pretending I was a reasonable woman with a reasonable life, and I was exhausted from the effort.

Callum had been gone all weekend, off fighting whatever public-relations monster Hartwell had become. I had done what any mature adult woman would do when the billionaire CEO who was also her godfather and her boss sent her home after making her feel like the center of his universe and a very good/naughty girl, then left town. I cleaned my apartment because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. I answered Jules’s texts inconsistently. I ordered groceries I did not need because I mistook the ability to select Greek yogurt on an app as evidence that I had control over my life.

When I hadn’t answered her quickly enough for the fifth time, Jules had declared my solitude ‘psychologically unsound’ and arrived with soup, wine, and a tote bag full of nail polish, cozy sweatshirts, and face masks.

“You look like a ghost,” she observed helpfully when I opened the door.