Bargaining with the Boss (Honeybrook Love, Inc. 2)

"He likes them passive. The opposite of his mother." She grinned at him and he barked a laugh.

"She knows me well." Franco said.

"Apparently so." Brooks wrote the answer, but his knuckles were already beginning to turn white on the pen.

She'd met this man's mother? What kind of friend knows a friend's family members like that? Sure, it wasn't entirely out of the ordinary but—

No. Focus.

"Okay, so, what would you say was the cause of your last break-up?"

Franco cleared his throat. "A difference in goals."

"Could you be more specific?"

"No." Franco said.

"He doesn't want children." Natalie explained. "That was the reason."

"Maybe I should just be asking you these questions." The words were out of Brooks' mouth before he had a chance to temper them, and Natalie's eyes widened in response.

"Maybe you should." She shot back.

"What quality can you not stand in a companion?" Brooks asked, turning his attention back to Franco, but Franco stared from him to Natalie for a long minute before answering.

"Mr. Del Rossi?" Brooks prompted.

"Oh, I think I cannot stand disloyalty."

"Okay." He wrote it down.

"Is there something going on here? Between the two of you?" Apparently Franco was more perceptive than he'd let on.

Brooks stared at Natalie, waiting for the answer to the question, but she only blinked at him, her mouth puckered into a tiny dot.

"Natalie—" He started, but she interrupted him.

"How about we finish up the questionnaire, okay?" She smiled at Franco, and then turned to Brooks. "What's the next question?"

Brooks nodded, and though he read the question, his brain didn't register what it said.

She wouldn't tell him that they were together. It wasn't the office. It wasn't anything. She just didn't any people to know.

Was it his reputation?

He could understand that, though he thought she would have told him if it was something like that.

No, there was something else going on here.

Jealousy, maybe?

"Three or four times a week." Franco's answer cut through his thoughts, and when his gaze met the other man's he had a sudden insistent urge to sock him as hard as he possibly could.

Dammit all.

He had to get out of here.

Take a minute to pull himself together and figure this out. It was possible he was overreacting. She wouldn't do anything to—