Page 26 of Followed By the CEO

Maybe it’s the wine, but I’ve only had one glass.

If I die, I die.

“Let’s go.”

chapter

eight

Hayden

When we arrive at her apartment, Mills knocks on the door opposite hers on the landing at the top of the stairs.

That Peter guy opens the door, Monster nestled in his arm like a football. The little dog instantly perks up when he sees Mills and practically jumps into her arms.

She thanks him and offers to pay him, but he politely declines.

“It’s my pleasure,” Peter says, his glance going from her to me. Am I paranoid, or do I detect something prickly in his energy aimed at me?

Behind the closed door of her apartment, I mutter, “I do not like that guy.”

Mills laughs. “Peter’s great. He always looks after Monster for me, no questions asked.”

I scoff as I kick off my shoes. “He asks no questions because he wants to get into your pants.”

Mills sets down the dog, who trots over to his water dish.

“Ugh, don’t be gross, Hayden,” Mills says, padding into the kitchen.

I follow her. “Mark my words. This is why he doesn’t want payment.”

She opens the fridge and opens two hard seltzers. “You’re just saying that because Peter’s a man, and too many men think that men and women can never just be friends because one of them will always want to bang the other one.”

She hands me one of the seltzers and I say, “Looks like you’ve got me all figured out, Dimples.”

“Maybe he’s just a nice person who doesn’t want anything in return.”

We study each other as we drink our drinks on opposite ends of this tiny galley kitchen. “This is why I pay people. Everyone wants something and if I pay them well enough, they don’t come after me.”

“Trust issues much?”

“Definitely.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story,” I say.

Mills moves into the living room and sits on the sofa, patting the cushion beside her.

“I’ve got all night.”

“When my dad left, I was nine years old. He promised I could visit him that summer in Montana and we would go fishing and tubing at his new place by a river in the mountains. He moved on and remarried and had a whole new family. I called him and asked when I could come, but he said it wasn’t a good time. The same thing happened the following summer, and the next one. And the next. Eventually I gave up. So I decided from then on that I would be nothing if not honest. If I want to see someone, I say it. If I say it, I follow through. I don’t play games or string people along. I didn’t want to grow up to be like my dad.”

Mills listens with the face of someone who is clear eyed and hanging on every word. In this moment right here, I think I could be in love with her already.

“You’re not like him at all. I’ve never met someone as straightforward as you.”

“Thank you.”

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