Page 10 of Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast

Meanwhile, my phone buzzed once more. This time, the text was from Sarah, Dad’s caretaker.

Sarah:He nearly escaped again. But no worries, I got to him before he made it to the corner and got him back inside. All good on the home front!

I groaned. Dad had nearly escaped again? There was so much stress from his condition, his increasing number of disappearances, this new procedure the doctors were suggesting, to try to think about anything else.

I couldn’t worry about what was going on with my boss. So I pushed the feelings aside like always and strode past the cubicles and the heads poking over them toward Duncan’s office.

I didn’t have a college degree, nor did I have many other options. Jerk though he was, being Duncan Hawthorne’s assistant paid extremely well, and Dad couldn’t afford for me to act on whims like quitting just because of a bunch of office gossips.

I had to stick this one out. For Dad.

I had to stay strong for him. No matter what my boss threw at me next.

FOUR

duncan

Stayingin my stained shirt wasn’t an option, not with several meetings with important clients coming up this afternoon. I stalked to my office, closed the door, and trailed to the tall cupboard in the corner. Inside, several pressed shirts hung in wait for times such as this.

I yanked my tie loose. As I started in on the buttons of my shirt, the memory of Rosabel’s fingers in mine was like the singeing burn of the hot liquid against my chest—it wouldn’t leave.

That burn had rattled me. The unexpected prick of liquid had shocked me to say the least. If the coffee hurt me that badly beneath my shirt, how bad were her fingers?

So, I’d acted without thinking.

And from the snickers of the women when I’d left the breakroom, Rosie was going to pay for it.

As much as I’d enjoyed being so close to her, touching her, inhaling the vanilla scent of her hair, I regretted my actions. What had come over me? In the moment, all I could think of was that she’d been hurt.

While part of me regretted touching her in front of others, another huge part of me savored it. Holding her close, breathingin her scent, feeling the lack of resistance as I held her fingers under the water.

I was the addict, and she was the fix. One touch wasn’t going to be enough.

Buttons undone, I pulled my shirt the rest of the way free. I winced at the bruises on my arms from my last jiu-jitsu match at the gym. They weren’t the worst injuries I’d gotten. Once, I’d been knocked so hard in the head that it had blackened both of my eyes.

I tossed the soiled shirt onto my office chair and removed the black replacement from its hanger. But I barely managed to sling my arm through the sleeve when my office door burst open.

Rosabel strolled in, mug in hand, papers tucked under her other arm. She cast her gaze over my desk, the shirt on my chair, and finally clapped eyes on me and my bare arm and chest.

“Oh, my gosh,” she said, gaping at me. “What are you doing?”

Pink filled her silken cheeks. To my complete satisfaction, her mouth dropped, and she drank in the sight of my bare chest.

It could have been the pink spot where the hot coffee had struck my skin, but I knew she was checking me out. And from the interest in her eyes and the way she stared, I could tell she liked what she saw.

I had to say, I worked hard for these abs.

Seconds passed. As if coming to her senses, she lifted the papers in front of her face. It was only then that I noticed she’d left the door behind herwideopen.

Doing my best to keep it cool, I slung my arm into the other sleeve and started in on the buttons as I crossed to the door and closed it shut behind her, not missing the numerous heads swiveling in our direction.

Harpies. Let them think what they would.

“My shirt was stained,” I said once we were alone.

Her face was still covered. “Are you done putting one on?”

“Are you sure you want me to be?”

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