Page 31 of Bad Boy Billionaire Protector

Andrew’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you really?”

“Yeah. I know what I’ve done is completely shitty. But I didn’t know I was going to fall in love with her or her with me.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He held his hands out in front of him, gesturing me to stop. “Love? You don’t even know that word in relation to women. Who are you? What have you done with my boy, Mason?”

I paused for a few seconds, took a deep breath, before responding. “It’s not a joke, Andrew. I don’t know what or how this happened. But she’s it for me. I love this girl. I wasn’t looking for it.” I huffed humorlessly. “Don’t you think I know how awful it is that I’ve fallen for his girlfriend? But it’s like I can’t break the pull between us. It’s always going to be there. And it grows stronger every day.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it? Love’s young dream. What’s she going to say when she finds out who you really are, how old you really are?”

I was playing a twenty-four-year-old grad student, but I was really twenty-eight. Quite a bit older than Amber realized.

“I hadn’t really thought about it that far.”

“Well you ought to. It’s going to come out eventually, especially if you crack the case. What are you going to do? Just ghost her? Break her heart?”

“What? No! Of course not. I love her. I could never do that to her.”

“Holy shit! Mason, I’m starting to really believe you’ve really caught the bug. I’ve never known you to be like this. You’re usually a hump ‘em and dump ‘em type.”

I shrugged, feeling a sort of wild abandon. “I know. Not anymore. Not with her.”

“The other part to this is how are you going to keep her safe?”

“I’ll be able to keep her safe.” I said with confidence

“Famous last words, Mason.”

“Cut me some slack, Andrew. I’m doing the best I can.” I took a big gulp of my coffee, needing the caffeine. “With us being together, I’ll be able to keep tabs on Amber more easily. Her safety is my number one priority. I’m not ignorant of the fact that things will start to heat up as I get more involved with The Order. But it’s better than I’m with her rather than having her investigate on her own like she had been planning to do before we met.”

“Good point,” he paused. “Listen, I’m glad you found someone who brings these feelings of love into your life. And you know I’ve got your back, no matter what happens. But I wouldn’t be a good friend or partner if I didn’t point out the pitfalls of what you’re doing with her. And let’s be frank here: It’s a shitty thing to do to our guy while he’s still in hiding and hoping to reunite with her when this is over. That shit is just going to get worse until you come clean with him and Amber. You hear me?”

I grabbed my head and groaned. “It’s all I can think about.”

“All right, let’s move on. So, you said that Professor Owens seemed to be in charge of the ceremony?”

I was grateful for the change in discussion. “Yeah. He seems to be the head honcho, which is what I kind of expected given the way that people seem to fawn over him. He’s managed to come to Stanford and within a few years wormed his way into the secret society and become the de facto leader. Very clever of him. It also gives him the perfect position of power to manipulate things in the way he wants them, which he loves. And he tries to gather more influence and power towards him by bringing in the elite to his club.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah. I have a meeting with them tonight, so I’ll be able to report back on that later on.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“No idea. This will be my first one. But going by their initiation, I can imagine it will be pretty tame.”

Andrew laughed. “And there you were, imagining you would be chased through the woods by people.”

“At the very least, I expected to be tied up. The initiation was underwhelming from that point of view,” I laughed too.

“Ah, students and their shenanigans. You’ve gotta love it.”

“Yeah, well, the sooner this is over the better. I can tell Amber who I am and we can move on with life.”

“Okay, well, just be careful at the meeting tonight. Keep your eyes peeled and ears open.”

“Will do. I’ll be networking as much as I can to see if I can find out any more information on the deaths. I also want to keep an eye on Adam’s friends. I think at least one of them has something to do with his death and I certainly don’t trust any of them.”

“Good.” Andrew took a deep breath and looked like he was hesitating to say something.

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