Page 37 of His Good Girl
The phone rings again, and I pick it up. “Rue?”
“He said to bring all your stuff.”
She hangs up.
Gathering up my belongings, I glance at my watch. It’s four thirty, so I might as well call it a day. It doesn’t look like Logan is coming back any time soon, so this day has been a nightmare of a slow-moving clock waiting for him. Cutting my losses, with a heavy sigh, I slip on my coat and head out to the reception. I can only imagine it’s Uncle Quentin. He’s the only distinguished older man I know. Apart from Logan, but then she’d have said. The apple guy is a mystery, though.
“Serena,” Quentin says as I approach.
“Hi, Uncle Quen.”
He bends to kiss me on the top of my head. I wouldn’t say we are close, but we aren’t strangers either. Flicking my glance to the giant tree man next to him, I raise my gaze up and up and across his broad chest and then press my lips together to stop the smile. Not being able to resist looking at Rue, I try to give her my absolute approval with my eyes, but she is too busy staring at him, and it’s not for me to wonder why. He is gorgeous. Pitch black hair and blue eyes that are so clear, they are practically luminous. Now, I’m a sucker for tall, dark, and blue-eyed, obviously, given my feelings for Logan, but this guy is…wow.
He is utterly oblivious to Rue, me, Quentin, and pretty much everyone and everything, and I wonder who he is.
“Come, I’ll give you a lift home,” Quen murmurs.
I wave to Rue and follow Quen into the elevator. We are quiet on the ride down, and when we head outside, there is an expensive black car waiting at the curb. Quentin opens the back door for me and gestures me inside before he slips in next to me.
“Serena!”
Glancing up at the voice, it’s cut off when Quentin closes the door, and I see Apple guy slam his hand into Logan’s chest.
The driver shoots away from the curb as I turn in my seat to stare at Logan, arguing with the ginormous man on the sidewalk. “Wait!” I exclaim. “I need to speak to him.”
“I need to speak to you first. It’s important.”
Turning back around, I glare at Quen. “What is this about?”
“This is about you and him.”
“Him? Him who?”
“Logan Carter.”
Quentin hasn’t looked at me yet, instead speaking to the back of the headrest in front of him.
Feeling that we’ve entered some dangerous territory, I sit back, almost defensively, pulling my bag onto my lap. “What about him and me?”
He sighs and faces me. “Cilla was worried about you, so I set you up with this job, thinking you’d be safe from a man like Logan Carter. He has a general dislike for the human race, and I thought he would leave you alone to just get on with your work in a place where you could further your own career.” He pauses and purses his lips before continuing. “But I realize now that I made a grave error sending you to him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is a dangerous man, Rena. He is older than you and not the type of man that you should be associated with on a personal level.”
“I’m still not getting it,” I murmur. “He’s my boss.”
“He has been looking into your life,” he states crisply. “He has dug up things about you to use to worm his way into your life. You are a conquest to him. Sweet and innocent in his morally gray world. He sees you as a challenge. He will get under your skin with the things he knows about you, use you, and discard you. I will not allow that to happen.”
“Uhm…” That stings. Not so much the fact that Logan has been learning about me through insidious means, I actually find that almost flattering in my fucked-up mind, but Quen’s words are harsh. A conquest. Use. Discard. These are not words a woman wants to hear about the man she’s just had sex with only a few hours ago.
“I don’t think it’s any of your business,” I say, my temper rising.
“Actually, it is, and I absolutely forbid you to see this man again.”
“What?” I thunder. “Forbid? Who the hell do you think you are? You are not my parent, you cannot forbid me anything, least of all a man that, to be honest, has no interest in me whatsoever.”
“Oh, but he does. And I am well within my rights to forbid this.”
