Page 6 of Her Keeper
“Are you sure? I know you and Michael are… involved… but you have to know I’d do anything I could to make you feel better.”
God, this poor man. He was one of my favorite people in the entire operation—that I knew of, anyhow—and had been nothing but kind to me since I stepped through the front door. He’d made me laugh and loaned me his coat, talked me through situations I couldn’t have handled on my own. He’d also been the man assigned to my security right from the start.
He’d been kind and wonderful, and I truly appreciated every second he’d given me.
Which made me feel almost guilty for what I was about to do.
Almost.
But I liked my life even better than I liked Barney.
“I think that’s just your job,” I said with a sigh. “But I appreciate you saying that.”
He dropped into the chair next to me and leaned down to look into my eyes. “It’s my job, that’s true. But it’s more than that. When I work with someone, I make them my family. And that means you. You’re like my sister. If you were in trouble, I’d be the first one stepping in to help you.”
I gave him a watery grin, because I actually believed that. I had no idea if that type of loyalty was common in this world, but I’d seen it firsthand in Barney. He was absolutely loyal to Michael, and if Michael gave him a job, Barney made that job his life.
Evidently that also pertained to people he was told to guard.
Hopefully it would make him feel loyal enough to me to let me go when I told him I just wanted to go home. If I was reading him right, he might also let me go just because he didn’t know what to do with a crying woman.
I turned up the quiver in my voice.
“I appreciate that, Barney, seriously, but I don’t think you can help me with what’s going on right now.”
“Man problems?” he asked gently.
Oh. My. God. I fought so hard to keep from laughing that I thought my ribs were going to crack.
“Yes,” I moaned. “It’s Michael. He’s been so distant lately, and I… I… I think he’s been cheating on me. I don’t even know if you know we’re together but—”
“Everyone knows you’re together,” he said bluntly.
Oh. Right. I flushed at the idea that ‘everyone’ knew, and wondered what exactly they knew. I wondered what they’d heard when Michael and I were in his office together, his hand on my back and my chest pressed to the desk as he—
I cut the thought off as unproductive and even hurtful. I didn’t need to think about Michael pressing me down and taking me like he owned me while I covered my mouth and fought to keep quiet. I didn’t want to remember those sorts of things right now.
They were far too painful.
“Everyone also knows he hasn’t seen anyone else since Sloane and Joseph’s wedding,” Barney continued, unaware of the thoughts rushing through my brain.
His words brought me up short, though.
“What?”
Barney leaned toward me, his bulk making the chair creak. “We have a bet in the office that he saw you at the wedding and fell in love with you. Girls coming and going like crazy before that night, and after that? Nothing.” He leaned away and shrugged, looking smug and satisfied. Like he was telling me some sort of secret.
My heart cracked anew at the thought. Not the secret, but the idea that Michael had seen me at the wedding and felt something for me.
More thoughts that weren’t going to get me anywhere. Emotion that wasn’t going to help me right now. The fact was, thoughts like that were just going to get in the way of me getting the hell out of here.
“Maybe you just didn’t know about the other women,” I suggested.
Barney chuckled. “Believe me, he doesn’t keep them secret. No way he could have been seeing anyone without us knowing about it. There hasn’t been anyone else since you came into the picture. I can promise you that.”
I let a small smile creep over my face, touched at this big man’s attempts to make me feel better. I had no idea whether he was telling the truth or not, and I wasn’t going to let myself care, but the fact that he was working so hard to comfort me was really something.
I’d needed an ally, and Barney had stepped right into the role.
