Page 27 of His Good Girl

I wished I knew.

But at seven, I would pick her up.

And until then, I had a company to protect, a scandal to avoid, a dead man’s promise to honor, and one very alive woman’s name sitting on my phone like a lit match balancing over a pile of tinder.

CHAPTER 4

Avery

By noon, I had already lived six separate lives and all of them needed a drink.

Technically, I had a job. Technically, I should have gone home after leaving Rowe Tower, opened my laptop, read over whatever onboarding packet Benjamin Mercer had probably designed with the emotional warmth of a hostage manual, and prepared myself to become the kind of woman who arrived at corporate buildings before the coffee had fully hit.

Instead, I walked three blocks in the wrong direction, bought an iced latte I could not afford, and stood under the green awning of a bakery staring into traffic while my body slowly realized it had survived the morning. That was the thing about fear. It did not leave when the threat left. It lingered in the bloodstream like a bad guest, touching all the furniture and reminding you it had been there long after they left.

Jules found me twenty minutes later at a tiny café that was mostly marble, plants, and women in boots discussing Pilateswith the seriousness of foreign policy. I had chosen a corner table because it had a view of the door and a wall at my back, as though Benjamin might rappel from the ceiling and accuse me of mishandling a napkin. I had my new job offer, my visitor badge still tucked in my purse, Ben’s heavy business card sitting on the table between my coffee and a croissant I had bought out of optimism and then forgotten to eat.

Jules walked in wearing sunglasses despite the gray day, a long black coat, and the expression of a woman arriving for either brunch or an exorcism. She took one look at me and stopped.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “You look employed.”

“I feel haunted.”

“By opportunity?”

“By a tyrannical little man named Benjamin.”

She slid into the chair across from me, dropped her bag beside her, and picked up the business card without asking. “Benjamin Mercer,” she read. “Executive Assistant to Callum Rowe. Oh, this card has weight. This card has enemies. This card has a safe word.”

“Don’t make me laugh. I’m fragile.”

“You’re not fragile. You’re newly hired. It’s similar, but with taxes.” She turned the card over, inspected the back, then laid it down with reverence. “Did he emboss this with the bones of weaker assistants?”

“Probably interns.”

“Efficient.”

I put my face in my hands. “I start tomorrow.”

“I know. You told me. I screamed, remember?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“No one does.”

“I had lint on my jacket this morning. Ben noticed.”

“Of course he did.” She leaned forward. “Tell me everything. And do not skip the hot parts out of shame. Shame is for people with boring not-hot godfathers.”

I groaned so deeply the woman at the next table glanced over. “Please don’t call him that in public.”

“What should I call him? Your father’s best friend? Your morally complicated benefactor? Mr. Structural Integrity?”

“Jules.”

“Fine. Callum.” She said his name like she was testing it for mouthfeel. “There. Very normal. Very adult. Very man-who-can-probably-lift-you-up-off-the-floor-with-one-hand.”

“You are sick.”