Page 16 of Bound By My Father's Best Friend

I blew out a sigh. He wasn’t going to let this go, was he?

“You’re going to think it’s stupid,” I murmured, pushing spaghetti around on the plate before taking a scoop of it on my fork. “So, no, I don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to tell you. You’ll judge me too.”

“Did your friends judge you?”

“No, but?—”

“Then, who did?”

After setting my fork back down on the plate, I crossed my arms. “My dad will.”

He arched a brow. “Jacob will for what? He brags about you all the time.”

I pressed my lips together to stop my chin from quivering. “If I tell you, will you drop it?”

“Yes.”

Though something told me that he really wouldn’t be dropping anything.

“Do you remember when we were talking online and planning to meet up for the first time, but I told you that I couldn’t because I was studying for a test last week? Well, I failed it. See? Stupid. Now if you’d let me, I’d like to go back to eating in peace.”

When I grabbed my fork again, that man’s gaze burned into me.

I looked up at him. “What?”

“Why’d you fail?”

“Because I’m stupid,” I said. “Now?—”

“You’re not stupid,” he said. “Bratty? Yes. But not stupid.”

My eyes lingered on him for a moment longer than they should’ve, a warm feeling spreading throughout my chest. I didn’t know why I felt this way around him, why I had even agreed to come over or tell him any of this.

But nobody had … said that to me before.

Every time I put myself down—except in front of my friends—nobody would ever say otherwise. Compared to Aaron, I felt like a complete idiot who couldn’t do anything right. Hell, he was even starting his own company and had gotten over a million dollars in funding for it in undergrad.

Undergrad!

I was almost halfway through my twenties and couldn’t pass a class.

“Yes, I am,” I whispered.

Hector leaned across the table, took my chin in his hand, and tilted my head to look up at him. “No, you’re not, Heather. Now, why did you fail? Did you not understand the material, or had I been keeping you up too late with my messages?”

My lips quivered again, the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. I didn’t want to cry in front of him again because it’d make me feel even more like an idiot, but I almost couldn’t help it. He was usually so rough, but his touch right now … was so gentle.

“I don’t understand it,” I whispered, a tear running down my cheek. “I’ve tried to.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“The MBA program forces everyone to take a software development course,” I said.

It had absolutely nothing to do with my track or what I actually wanted to do, so I thought it was so stupid that I had to learn how to code. But I couldn’t back out of it now. I had gone through four years of undergrad and now nearly two years of grad school.

“Coding, huh?” he hummed.

“Yeah, but it’s so hard.”

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