Page 51 of Quarantined with the Billionaire

The way he squinted an eye told me he was likely growing tired of my continuous jabs in that department—but he needed to know all was not fair in the land of customer service. As the owner and CEO, he had to be told that maybe some of the people he trusted as leaders weren’t behaving as they should.

I might not have been the perfect messenger, but I was delivering the news just the same.

“It has been duly noted, Ms. Bernard.”

Oh…what the hell was that? Was referring to me by my last name his way of pushing me even further away from him? Did my issues pale in comparison to his?

“Good.” I clipped my way back to the breakfast nook, halfway surprised when he joined me. After we both sat down, I eyed all the toppings, deciding to make one waffle super decadent with strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream and the other I’d eat with plain butter and syrup. “Do you happen to have a best friend at work?”

“What do you think, Bailey?” I noted he used my first name, so that was better, but I kept my eyes on my plate, busying myself with preparing my food so I wouldn’t have to experience the scrutiny of his eyes firsthand. “How would that work exactly? I’m the owner of the company. That means I have no business making friends with the people who work for me.”

The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. “But sleeping with them is okay?”

I looked up then, spying the way he clenched his jaw. “That was a mistake. We all make them. Successful people learn from them.”

Oh, I’d overshot my mark. “Meaning?”

“Meaning if I had any brains at all, I’d send you home today. We’d work apart from here on out.”

His earlier words still stung and these cemented that feeling, so I fought back tears that I hadn’t expected. “Maybe we should do that.”

It was silent for a few moments. I saw steam rising off his waffles, but I suspected our food would be ice cold by the time we touched it—if we ever did. I no longer had any appetite.

“There’s nothing logical about it, Bailey,” he said, reaching his hand across the table to cup mine. “We cannot allow ourselves to sleep together again, but that doesn’t mean I can just kick you out of my home at a time like this.”

“Why not?” I continued struggling against the tears, because showing a man like Maddox any weakness wouldn’t help this situation. “I can’t just pretend that didn’t happen last night.”

“Nor can I.” With his other hand, he touched my chin, tilting my head so I had to look him in the eyes. “But there’s something about you, Bailey. You remind me of myself in a lot of ways. And I want—” He clenched his jaw again and stroked my cheek. “Anyway, just…stay. I will keep my hands to myself.”

“But you were going to say something else, Maddox. What was it? What do you want?”

His cool blue eyes assessed mine before he spoke. “Something deep inside me needs to protect you. I can’t explain it. But I need to protect you most of all from me.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It doesn’t need to. You’ll just have to trust me.” Removing his hands from me, he began piling his waffles with the decadent condiments he’d put out earlier.

Of all things with this man—and even though he made me feel safer than I’d ever felt in my entire life—I didn’t know that trust, the way he demanded it, at any rate, was something I could do blindly. After we settled into eating our food, my mind went over every little detail from the past two days and settled on one tiny thing. “Who’s Kate?”

He’d just been guiding a bite of waffle toward his mouth, but he paused it in midair. “What do you know about Kate?”

“Nothing. I…” His eyes were boring into me, down to my soul, trying to access every secret I had. “I took your advice, deciding to read more. And I went into the den and—”

“The Girl on the Train, right? Kate wrote something in the book, didn’t she?”

Geez. Now I felt like a snoopy bitch. “It was signed by the author, but there was a card in there. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at it, but I thought it might have something to do with being a signed copy and I was curious.”

He didn’t seem angry that I’d invaded his privacy, instead appearing weary and remorseful. I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly. “She was my wife.”

Oh, yeah. His ex. He’d described their parting as brutal, if I recalled correctly. I didn’t even know what to say now, but I felt strangely better that I’d brought it up.

“I suppose I should just get rid of the damned book. I’d forgotten about it until you showed it to me yesterday.” Smiling then, he lifted the fork once more. “When you finish reading it, let me know what you think. Then I’ll decide if I want to keep it.”

What little I knew about the story, I suspected he wouldn’t like it—and wondered when Kate had given the book to Maddox. Had she already been unhappy in their relationship and was trying to send him a message?

Shivering at the thought, I grew quiet.

“Talk to me, Bailey. What’s on your mind?”

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