Page 138 of His Good Girl

“Hartwell is Hartwell. Lang remains allergic to dignity.” He paused. “There are also peripheral complications.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you should ask Mr. Rowe.”

That frightened me more than anything else he could have said. He then knocked once on Callum’s door, opened it, and announced me with none of his usual theater.

“Ms. Hale.”

Callum looked up from behind his desk. He was clean-shaven and sharply dressed, but there were shadows beneath his eyes, and the papers on his desk had multiplied into stacks that looked hostile and punitive. His suit was dark, his tie loosened by perhaps half an inch, his hair slightly rough at the temples as if he had pushed a hand through it one too many times.

His gaze found mine.

“Avery,” he said.

“Callum.”

Benjamin closed the door behind me. The click was soft.

Callum stood. “Lock it.”

My body reacted before my brain did. Then my brain caught up and panicked.

“Lock it?”

His eyes held mine. “Please.”

I turned, fingers trembling only slightly, and locked the door. The sound moved through me like a chord I already knew. When I faced him again, he had come around the desk but stopped several feet away, far enough away that we couldn’t touch.

“Before anything else,” he began, “are you alright?”

The question should have been easy. Instead, my throat tightened.

“I don’t know.”

His expression softened. “Tell me.”

I laughed once, without humor. “That’s the problem. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be this morning.”

He did not move.

“I came in thinking maybe you’d act like nothing happened,” I said. “Or maybe you’d call me in here and we’d…” I looked away, face heating. “And then I hated myself for being disappointed by the idea that you might not. And then I hated myself for being aroused by the idea that you would. And then I thought, great, wonderful! I’m walking into work wondering if I’m the boss’s girlfriend or his dirty little secret or his employee or his goddaughter or his?—”

I stopped.

“His what?” Callum asked quietly.

I looked at him. “Don’t make me say it.”

“I need to know what you’re afraid of.”

The kindness in his voice almost ruined me.

“His t-toy,” I answered very softly.

Callum went still. I thought I saw a flash of hurt cross his face, maybe, or the controlled version of hurt he allowed himself before converting it into something else.

“You arenotmy toy,” he said.