Page 65 of The Playboy

Something we weren’t allowed to do.

Which also meant I had to exit through the lobby. If I was caught, I’d be written up.

Again.

Just to be on the safe side, I took the baseball hat out of my bag—the one I used whenever I was in my car since my air-conditioning was broken and I couldn’t stand the open windows making my hair fly into my face. I secured the cap over my head, lowering the brim as far as it would go. And right before I left, I peeked at the full-length mirror by the restrooms, making sure the look was as inconspicuous as I needed it to be.

With my face this covered, even if I ran into someone I knew personally, they would have a hard time recognizing me.

Still, I needed to be quick and unseen, so I rushed down the long hallway, taking the stairs to the ground floor, and I checked in both directions to make sure there weren’t any executive-level staff around. When I was sure there wasn’t any, I walked past reception and through the lobby, the beautiful windows that showed the beach outside, and just as my stare dragged back toward the exit, something in the center caught my eye.

A man sitting at the bar.

With an unmistakable broadness and bulging muscles and dark hair and a thick beard that could only belong to one guy.

Macon Spade.

Shit.

But it wasn’t my fear of him seeing me that made me stop. It was the woman who was sitting next to him and their closeness that prevented my feet from taking another step.

My stomach began to bubble as I took in the way her hand was resting on his arm, how her thumb stroked the patch of hair that was there, how their faces were only six inches apart.

She was practically on top of him.

Petting him.

And he wasn’t telling her not to or removing her hand.

That meant he was enjoying it.

Encouraging it.

Hell, maybe he’d even instigated it.

This was not the kind of guy who wanted to settle down. This was the kind of guy who would break me.

And if he saw my heart, if I ever dared to show it to him, he’d shred it.

Why was everything in me suddenly aching?

Why were my hands clenching?

Why did I want to rush over to them and call his ass out for the things he’d said to me just two days ago?

The dinner he’d wanted to spend together, the breakfast.

How I was different.

How he’d been a playboy for such a long time, his desire changing when he’d met me.

Yet I was looking atthis.

At them.

At the possibility of him asking her out for dinner. Of him bringing her up to his room, where he’d fuck her on the bed I’d just made.

Of him saying the same words to her that he’d recently said to me.

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