Page 31 of Bet On Me, Daddy

Not your place. Not your concern.

Right. Because Ruby wasn’t his, and he had no intention of keeping her. Which meant he needed to keep his distance, at least emotionally, regardless of the deal he’d made with Holden.

Feeling antsy, he pushed away from his desk and stalked toward the door to his office. Sonja looked up as he stepped out into the waiting area that housed her desk and a handful of chairs for visitors. “Everything all right, sir?”

“Yes.” He could hear the bite in his voice, but Sonja didn’t so much as blink. Which only made him feel like an even bigger asshole.

“Sorry,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “Late night, rough morning. You know how it goes.”

“Do you need me to reschedule your afternoon?” Without even glancing at the computer, she ran through his schedule. “Your two o’clock with the board can’t be moved but everything else is flexible.”

“No, I’m fine. I’m just going to take a walk, but I’ll be back for my next meeting.”

“Sounds good.”

Fresh air. He just needed some fresh air to get Ruby out of his head for a bit.

Laughter rang out as he stepped out of the elevator into the main lobby, and he had the fleeting thought that he must need that fresh air more than he realized because he could swear it sounded like?—

“Ruby?”

The woman standing at the guard station whipped around, her dark eyes going round in her suddenly pale face. “Beckett? What the hell are you doing here?”

Amusement burned away some of the restlessness of his day as he approached her. “Well, seeing as how I own the building, I’m not sure where else you’d expect me to be.”

Most women, upon realizing he was much, much richer than they’d expected, practically threw themselves at his feet.

Not Ruby.

Annoyance flickered in her eyes right before she rolled them up toward the ceiling. “Of course you own the fucking building. That’s just my luck.”

Instinct overrode all common sense and he reached for her, capturing her chin between his fingers and forcing her gaze to lock with his. “Is there a problem, little girl?”

“Yes. But it’s my problem. Please let me go.”

He didn’t want to. It surprised him, even after having her invade his every thought since he’d walked away from her the night before, how hard it was to pull his hand away. “Come upstairs and we’ll talk about whatever’s bothering you.”

“I’m working.”

And that was when he finally noticed the plastic bag in her hand and the lanyard around her neck stamped with the logo of a well-known food delivery service.

“But you work at the coffee shop.”

Jesus Christ, could you be any more of a dumbass?

The answer was ‘No’, if the look on Ruby’s face was any indication.

“And I do this. Do you have a problem with that?”

Yes. He had a big fucking problem with the idea that she might be running herself ragged just to make ends meet. With the thought of her driving around, too exhausted to focus on her surroundings.

Memories crowded in on him, threatened to smother him if he didn’t put them back in the box where they belonged. It had been happening more and more since Silver’s attack, and Rubyseemed to trigger them more than anyone or anything else. And as he struggled to push the memories, the pain back down, everything in him physically ached to scoop her up in his arms, to carry her back to his house and keep her there, safe and cared for.

But she wasn’this, as he’d spent the entire morning reminding himself. And he had damn good reasons for not making her his. The biggest and most important of all being that she didn’t strike him as the type of woman to be satisfied with the restrictions he would want—no,need—to place on her for his own peace of mind.

“No,” he finally managed to answer her when it felt like he could breathe again. “Of course I don’t have a problem with it. I was just surprised to see you.”

“Yeah, well, same.”

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