Page 128 of His Good Girl

I said nothing.

“Not office gossip public. Not Dana-glares-at-you-across-a-conference-table public. I meanpublicpublic. Newsletters. Columns. Council members with microphones.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” His voice sharpened. “Because the story writes itself, Callum. Powerful CEO hires his dead friend’s beautiful daughter after a late-night email, installs herinsidehis office, and suddenly she’s leaving after hours in company cars. Add goddaughter, add age gap, and congratulations, you have handed our enemies a bouquet of daggers with which to eviscerate you.”

My jaw tightened.

“I am not saying she is a mistake,” he appended.

That surprised me enough that I looked at him.

He lifted one hand. “Do not make a face. I am capable of nuance when properly cornered.”

“You think this is nuanced?”

“I think this is catastrophic.” He paused. “I also think anyone with a working pulse and the misfortune of watching the two of you breathe the same air can see there is more happening than simple stupidity.”

I looked away.

Benjamin sighed. “As your assistant, I must advise that you are placing the company at risk.”

“As my friend?”

His mouth tightened, as if the word had inconvenienced him.

“As your friend,” he continued quietly, “I am forced to admit that I understand the lapse in survival instinct.”

I stared at him.

He looked irritated by my silence. “She is intelligent. She is quick and funny. She works harder than she wants anyone to notice. She looks at you like you personally invented both gravity and consequence, which is unfortunate because you respond to it like a man being shown sunlight after fifteen years underground. And yes, before you threaten me with bodily harm, she is beautiful.”

“Benjamin.”

He leaned back in his chair. “One does not simply say no to that, Callum. One creates governance, minimizes exposure, and prays no one with a camera catches the elevator door closing.”

A cold thread moved through me at that.

“Why would you say that?”

Benjamin’s expression flickered with something I didn’t quite recognize.

Before he could answer, Dana’s office door opened. She came out carrying a file and a mug of coffee that had almost certainly gone cold hours earlier. “Because someone already had a camera.”

The floor went quiet around us, or maybe I only heard it that way.

I turned to her. “What?”

Dana crossed the hall and stopped beside Benjamin’s desk. She had the grim satisfaction of a woman who hated being right but enjoyed being competent about it. “PR received an anonymous tip this afternoon. It isn’t public yet and it wasn’t sent to any journalists that we know of, but it’s enough to let us know someone is sniffing around.”

Benjamin picked up his tablet and turned it toward me.

The photo was grainy, taken from across the street at street level. I swallowed hard, seeing Avery outside Rowe Tower two nights ago, after I had kissed her for the first time. Her coat was pulled tight, her hair loose in a way I remembered too vividly, her face turned slightly away from the camera. It was not damning on its own. A young employee leaving an office building after hours. Nothing more.

Unless someone wanted it to be more.

Another photo showed my car at the curb outside her apartment from the dinner night. Dark, angled, imperfect, but clear enough if someone knew where to look.