Page 68 of The Billionaire's Assistant

He was right. Ben couldn’t have confessed to me, because if I fired him, his family would probably have hurt him, maybe even killed him.

Carter laid a hand over mine. “I won’t say what you did was wrong. He needed to be monitored. I agreed with that. I didn’t even want him here, but your instincts were spot on.”

“I fucked this all up. I wanted him. I told him it wasn’t game, but is that really true? At first, I saw something I wanted, and I went after it because that’s what I do. But things changed. I started to feel more, and then I did exactly what I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t do. I hurt him when I wanted to protect him. We’ve got to get him out of that apartment. He’s not safe.”

“I’ve got someone watching him 24/7 and another person watching his building when he’s not there.”

“He’d be safer at my penthouse.”

“Would he agree to go there?”

Would he? “Maybe if I stayed somewhere else.”

Carter raised his brows.

“Maybe not. He doesn’t want my help now.”

“That’s not completely true. He came to the office today. He might have said he didn’t want to be there, but he was working and I noticed he was drinking the coffee you left for him.”

“How did you know I got him coffee?”

Carter grinned. “Martin keeps me very well informed.”

“So you’re spying on me.”

“I’m keeping you safe. That is, after all, my job.”

“You were totally against me hiring him, and now you’re trying to come up with ways to help me keep him?”

“I’m trying to come up with ways to keep you both from regretting walking away, and I’m trying to keep you both safe. I was wrong. Is that something you’ve admitted?”

“Fuck. Why do you always have to come right to the point like that?”

“Because you need someone to. Did you try apologizing?”

“I don’t…I’m not….”

Carter raised his brows.

“Fine. I was wrong to keep all this from him for so long.”

“Great. Now why don’t you try telling him that.”

Because it scares the shit out of me.“Because he won’t talk to me unless it’s about business.”

“You’ve never let that stop you before.”

“The stakes have never been this high before.”

32

BEN

Being around Miles at the office was hell. The only time we spoke during the morning was when it was absolutely necessary for work. I tried to avoid looking at him as much as I could. Miles glanced my way frequently as he brooded in his office, before abruptly leaving with Carter.

I was trying my best to make sense of the spreadsheet in front of me, but I couldn’t seem able to comprehend anything today. All I could do was think about Miles. Should I try to talk to him once he returned? If it had all been a game, why would he care now? Why would he have insisted I come to work? Why did he keep trying to talk to me? But even if he hadn’t meant to hurt me, how would anything ever work between us?

“Ben?”

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