Page 52 of Arrogant Boss

“Why do you keep your life private from the media? When I googled you, there wasn’t anything on there about you.”

“Why were you looking me up?”

“Curious.”

“About?”

“Your life.”

“Nosey.” He exhales. “Well… because of my parents. I remember when I was six years old, my father’s cheating scandals came out, and he had lost a few deals because of it. Paparazzi flooded outside of the mansion we were living in at the time, they even followed me to school. He blames my mother until this day. Enough questions. What about you? Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“I don’t have anything interesting to tell you.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“You’re going to be angry at me if I tell you, and plus it happened a long time ago.”

His grin makes me melt. “All right.” I close my eyes. “You remember the girl you took on our family vacation, two years ago to London? Makayla, I think.”

He nods.

“Well… she threatened me. She told if I didn’t stay away from you, she was going to sleep with Carter, so I told her we already slept together the day before we went on the trip, but I was being a bitch.”

He laughs hard.

“You’re not mad?”

He shakes his head. “You did me a favor,” he tells me. “Because she was a fucking bore.”

He runs his fingers through my hair. “I used to fantasize about stealing you away from your ex. I used to want to go up to him and punch him in the face.” He keeps his eyes trained on my face.

Heat crawls up my neck. “How would you have done it?”

“Well, the night of your nineteenth birthday, I would have told him he didn’t deserve you and you need to be with someone who can love you the way you deserve. The way a man should. Then I would have taken you home and fucked you. I’d tell you how much I l—”

My phone blasts through the quiet room, and I place my finger up. “Hold that thought.”

Who the hell would call me at three in the morning? I fish my phone out of the drawer and glance at the screen. It’s an unknown number, so I hit the End button to ignore it, and it starts up again.

Groaning, I hit the green button, holding the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I say, feeling Atlas’s soft lips on my shoulder, and warmth spreads through my body. I swat him on the head lightly.

“Hello, this is Dr. Tanner.”

I sit up straighter. “Oh, hi. Is my mother okay?”

The silence over the phone is eerie and goosebumps sprout across my skin.

“I’m afraid she’s passed away.”

“What?” I say in shock. His words knock the wind out of me, and my eyes water.

“We rushed her to the hospital because she wasn’t breathing, and they ran an MRI scan on her. She had a brain infection, and it furthered the damage to her brain. I’m so sorry. Come down here as soon as possible so you can say your goodbyes. I’m really sorry, Lake.”

I hang up on him and turn to Atlas, who brings me into a hug.

Atlas grabs his phone from the table, and he calls Thomas and tells him to pull the car around.

---