Page 18 of Buy Me, Love
I pull the big glass door to the reception area open and march through, catching Ms. Steele’s gaze as I walk up to herdesk.
“Is he in?” I put my arms across my chest. My heart is beating so fast that I can feel it slamming into my forearms. Slamming right through them, in fact. I bite back a sob, knowing that my father’s assistant will take pity on me if she sees mecry.
I don’t want pity. I also didn’t want to discuss this with him over the phone, which is why I came straight up here to his office instead of going to my suite and getting my phone. If it’s eventhere.
I’m all twisted up right now. On the inside, on the outside. I’m a train wreck in slowmotion.
“I’m afraid he isn’t,” she says, rising to her feet to come around her desk. I hold my arms tighter to my chest and turn toward the big, north-facing windows. It’s one of the most beautiful days on record in the history of my entire short twenty years I’ve had so far, and inside I just want to curl up and die. Ms. Steele comes up next to me and tries to put he hand on my shoulder, but I pullaway.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, softening next to her. “I didn’t mean to berude.”
“Is there anything I can help you with, or is this a matter you need to take up with your fatherdirectly?”
I walk over to the row of chairs against the wall and perch on the edge of one, trying to figure out what I’m even herefor.
“I think it’s something I need to talk to him about directly,” I say, shaking my head from side to side. “I don’tknow.
“How was your date with Mr. Armstrong?” she asks, giving me a smile smile and perching next tome.
I know that if I blink, tears will start rolling down my cheeks. So I raise my gaze to the ceiling, but it’s no use. The tears comeanyway.
“Honey, what’s the matter?” Ms. Steele slides over to get closer to me, wrapping her arm around her shoulder to comfort me. I let myself sob against her shirt, and I stop short of grabbing the long silk ties hanging around her neck to blot myeyes.
“I don’t even know how to start to answer that,” I reply. I lift my face and she cups my cheeks as she peers into my eyes. I can feel her sympathy in my bones and it start to warm me up. I didn’t want pity, but sympathy I’lltake.
“Kit,” she says as she tucks a hair behind my ear. It just reminds me of how Max did it. I swallow around the lump in my throat. “I think there is something you need tosee.”
She stands up slowly and puts her hand out for me to take it. I slip my hand softly into hers and nod before she brings us into my father’s office. She takes a seat behind his desk and I idle near the door, my belly a flurry ofnerves.
“Come,” Ms. Steele says when she notices my hesitation. “Please, Kit. I need to show yousomething.”
I suck in a sharp breath and walk toward the desk, taking a seat at one of the big, tufted leather chairs facing the windows. I watch as Ms. Steele punches in the combination for the safe under my father’s desk. She withdraws two thick manilla folders and clutches them to her chest, her heels clicking softly as she makes her way toward me. Sitting down on the couch across from me, she places both folders on the coffeetable.
“Katherine, your father hired Mr. Armstrong six months ago.” I feel my brows furrow and my lips pop open in disbelief, the words washing over me. Ms. Steele opens the folders, and from one, she pulls out a signed contract and the blank check Max threw at her last night. From the other, she pulls out a stack of papers, neatly clipped in thecorner.
I take the papers from her with caution when she nudges them toward me. I start to flip through and I shake my head every time I get to something new. There’s my high school yearbook portrait in here. My browser history, complete with print-outs of maps of my favorite neighborhoods. Whoever has access to my phone knows that I like to research different neighborhoods and then try to get away from my guards to go explorethem.
My class schedule is in here, my tutoring schedule, my volunteerschedule.
I bring my fingers to my lips when I place the stack of papers back on the table and take the other folder into mylap.
“A contract,” I say, gliding my finger along the edge of the folder. “For my…protection?”
“Yes,” Ms. Steele says, her eyes dancing between mine. “Max has been following you as your secondary security for the last sixmonths.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. I knew my dad had my phone and laptop monitored and I stopped being annoyed about it two years ago. The thing I could never stop being annoyed at, though, was having eyes on me all thetime.
I just wanted to feel the sun against my skin and have it be the only thing touching me. No eyes, no men, I just wanted to feel the breeze against my thighs in my little short skirts and the wind tangle through my hair and pretend I was the only person in theworld.
And I did that - sometimes. When I broke away from my guards. But it turns out there was someone even more important than them watching me,too.
The man I fell in love with lastnight.
“Ms. Steele,” I say, rising to my feet, “I’ve made a terrible mistake. Can you please get my father on thephone?”
“Certainly, Kit,” she says. She doesn’t go out to her own desk in the reception area. Instead, she sits at my father’s desk and punches in his number. She puts her hand over the receiver and looks my way. “It’sringing.”
14
