Guarding His Heart (Forever Love 4)

“I don’t know, but I can’t spend the rest of my career as your assistant. I have an MBA. I have bills. I live in a dumpy apartment. I need to send money to my family. I can’t afford to live on this salary forever.”

“What if I got you a raise?” I asked softly. She couldn’t leave as my assistant.

“No.” She shook her head. “Everyone would know and they’d ask why. It would look too suspicious. All the assistants are paid based on a scale of how long they’ve been working at Maxwell Corp. If I made more than that, people would want to know why. I don’t want people to think I’m sleeping with the boss to make a couple of grand extra per year.”

“What if it was more than that?” I asked softly.

“Leo.” Her voice sounded annoyed. “I don’t even want to have this conversation. I’m not interested in your money. I’ll figure out something.”

“Fine.” I snapped, annoyed, though inside I was pleased. At least, Hannah didn’t appear to be a gold digger.

“What about you? Are you planning on staying on? When you started you didn’t seem to want to be in Corporate America, but you seem to know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know.” I answered honestly. “I’m not interested in pushing people down to get ahead and I don’t like working under my father, but I do enjoy the corporate world a lot more than I thought I would.”

“That’s because of me, of course.” She grinned and I laughed.

“Of course.” I responded and I knew deep down inside that I wasn’t lying.

“So, do you like Los Angeles?” I sat back and stared at her curiously. Hannah was unlike other girls I’d met. She was beautiful, but in a more natural way. And she didn’t play games. I liked the fact that she was so honest with her thoughts and feelings.

“It’s cool.” She spoke slowly. “It’s a lot faker than I thought it would be, but it’s also a lot deeper than I thought as well. I mean, in my area, it’s real people. Working class people, it feels like a community, but sometimes, when I go to different areas, it feels like some sort of plastic city with plastic people. I’m not used to being around so many pretentious and fake people.”

“I know what you mean.” I nodded. “People here are plastic, even the ones that haven’t had plastic surgery.”

“You feel that way, even though you grew up here?”

“I do.” I nodded slowly. “I’m lucky that my best friends are both cool. They both have a rich dad, but they’re down to earth.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Zane and Noah Beaumont, their dad is...”

“Omg, their dad is not that famous director?” Hannah’s eyes widened and I nodded.

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Though, you wouldn’t know it if you met them. They’re the coolest guys I know.”

“Is one of them your best friend that got married or something?”

“Yeah, Zane.” I nodded, pleased she’d remembered, though I couldn’t remember when I’d told her about him. “Zane is actually my best friend, Noah is his younger brother, but we’re tight as well. It’s actually a crazy story about them.”

“Oh?”

“Well, we all thought Noah was dead.” I laughed. “He’d gone to Florida to hide out from some drug lords.”

“What?” She looked shocked. “Is this true life or a movie?”

“Haha, right?” I laughed and suddenly felt really alive. “I’ll have to tell you the whole story sometime. But anyways, Zane and I used to do everything together: party, meet girls, that sort of thing. Then he met this girl, Lucky, down in Miami and as they say, the rest is history.”

“Wow, she must be some girl.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty special.” I nodded. “In fact, they’re having a picnic soon, if you want to come.”

“Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “Is that allowed?”

“What do you mean?” I stared at him in confusion and then remembered the rule about not meeting friends. “Oh yeah, the no friends rule.” I chuckled and looked away, feeling disappointed and anxious. I wanted Hannah to meet Lucky and I didn’t know why. Why did I care? What did it matter? We were just friends with benefits. This was just about the sex.

“You know.” She shrugged and I sighed.

“We’ll just go with the flow.” I leaned forward and kissed her. “Does that sound like a plan?” I leaned back slightly and licked her trembling lips lightly.

“Yes.” She nodded, her brown eyes staring into mine with a look I’d never seen before. “That sounds like a plan.”

Chapter Twelve

Hannah

I drove to work on Monday morning with nerves in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got to the office. How was Leo going to act when he saw me? We’d spent the entire weekend together, with me staying at his place on Saturday night and going back to my own place late Sunday afternoon. It had been an amazing weekend and we’d spent more time talking and eating, than we had having sex. It had almost felt like a real relationship. Almost. There had been a couple of awkward moments. Like Sunday morning when we’d woken up at the same time and just stared at each other for a few minutes before kissing. I parked and walked into the building feeling anxious and I hoped that Leo wasn’t going to be acting like an ass**le. I grabbed my phone as I walked into the building and saw a text from Leo.