Page 77 of His Good Girl

My pulse jumped. “And I won’t make you regret giving me a place here.”

The silence after that felt like it was buzzing with electricity. Callum looked at me as if the distance between us had become a measurable structural failure. I could see him calculating it. Could see him choosing not to cross it. His hand flexed once against the table, then flattened.

“That’s better,” he said.

My core fluttered so hard I had to look away.

The phone buzzed again, and this time he stood. The movement broke whatever spell had held us at the table. He picked up the phone, glanced at the screen, then looked back at me.

“I have to go.”

“Okay.”

“Benjamin will take you back.”

“Of course.”

He started toward the door, then stopped with his hand on the knob. For a second, he did not turn around. When he spoke, his voice was lower.

“Avery.”

“Yes?”

He looked back at me then, but not like my godfather and not like my boss, though both of those men were still there. He looked at me like a man who knew precisely what and how much he wanted and had decided, for the moment, to survive wanting it.

“No more pouting.”

Heat climbed my throat. “Yes, Mr. Rowe.”

For half a second, he looked as if he might come back to the table.

Instead, he opened the door. Benjamin stood on the other side with his tablet raised, one eyebrow lifted in a way that suggestedhe had either heard nothing and judged everything or heard everything and was composing a will.

“Splendid,” Ben gushed dryly. “No one is on fire.”

“Take Avery back to training,” Callum ordered.

“Is she still intact?”

“Benjamin.”

“I ask for HR purposes.”

“I’m intact,” I called, though my voice sounded less convincing than I would have liked.

Ben looked at me, then at Callum, then back at me.

“Hmm.” Somehow this also sounded dry.

That one syllable contained a congressional inquiry.

Callum’s phone rang. He answered it as he stepped past us, already switching into crisis mode. “No, Marcus. They do not get to frame this as a safety question without evidence. Put Tom on the line.”

And then he was gone, down the hall, leaving behind the faint scent of his cologne, two uneaten salads, and me, standing in his office with my pulse still throbbing between my legs.

Benjamin stared at me.

I stared back.