Counting the Days (Counting the Billions 1)

“For now,” Matt said darkly.

“He’s a good guy,” I protested. “He wouldn’t fire me just like that.”

Matt shook his head. “Do you really know that, though?” he asked. “I’m afraid that you’re letting this wealthy CEO cloud your judgment. Letting him use you. And when he’s done using you, do you really think he’s going to keep you around?”

“You don’t know him at all!” I snapped. “He’s nothing like what the media makes him out to be. He’s kind, and he cares about me. He cares about all of his employees. You just have no idea.” I was on my feet by now, practically shouting, and I suddenly remembered that there were little kids upstairs. I tried to calm myself down, but taking deep breaths just made me feel like I wanted to cry.

“Even if it was just about him using me,” I continued, “I do my work well. He knows that. He’s not just going to fire me.”

“We just want to make sure you’re safe,” Leanne broke in, clearly trying to calm me down. “I know you think that he’s different, that he’s a great guy, but this isn’t the first time you’ve thought that you were working for a different kind of boss.”

I stared at her, mouth open, shocked that she would ever bring up something like that. What a slap in the face. It was true that no employer of mine had ever appreciated my value before. Nor had any of the men I had been with. But now my own family was doubting me too, not trusting me to make my own decisions about things.

“I need to go,” I said, suddenly realizing I didn’t want to have this fight with them. I wanted this to be my haven, the place I came to get away from all the other shit in my life. I didn’t want them to take that away from me.

But right then, it felt like the only person in my corner was Daniel. And that, in itself, was frightening. I thought that I knew the man. I thought that I trusted him. But I had only been working for him for a couple of weeks now. What if it was all an act?

No. The only reason I was thinking like that was because of the things that Matt and Leanne had said about him. I thought back to the previous morning. He had slipped out of bed, trying his best not to wake me, but I had felt the brush of his lips against my shoulder. I had lain there for a while, debating whether I should slip out unnoticed, but then I’d realized that he was cooking breakfast for us.

He’d been so tender with me, almost as though this was more than what it really was. It definitely didn’t feel anything like a one-night stand. I trusted him.

But I trusted Matt and Leanne as well. Things were all just too complicated right now. But that wasn’t enough to make me never want to see Daniel again. I just wished that Matt and Leanne could be happy for me for once.

Chapter 23

Daniel

BY WEDNESDAY, I COULD tell that something was up with Abby. She’d been reserved all week so far. Distant. Aloof. Oh, she did her job just as well as ever. But her eyes never quite met mine, and the conversation between us just didn’t feel as easy as it had felt before.

It was killing me, seeing things go this way. Had I misunderstood what she wanted? Had she really only wanted a one-night stand? Or was it to do with those stupid articles about my leggy new advisor? Had that bothered her more than she had let on?

I had been hoping to take her out on another date that week, had hinted about it on Saturday even though I knew that it was more proper to wait a couple of days and give her a little time to think. Maybe that was what was bothering her. But I had thought that she was on board. I had thought that she wanted this just as badly as I did.

I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday trying to puzzle out her behavior. But I couldn’t come to any conclusions that made any sense to me. So I asked her to stay late with me in my office, ostensibly to go over some documents. It was sort of an abuse of my position in the company, but I told myself that I would have done th

e same for any of my employees if I suspected that there was a problem that was really bothering them.

“Is something wrong?” I asked Abby as she sat across from me at my desk. I kept my eyes trained on the papers in front of me, trying to act casual, giving her time to say whatever it was she wanted to say without feeling any pressure from me.

Abby started. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her paste a fake smile on her face. “No, of course not,” she assured me. “Why?”

“Abby,” I said quietly. Gently.

She sighed. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

“All right,” I said easily, trying to pretend that those words, themselves, didn’t twist my heart. “But something is wrong?”

“My brother and his wife—my best friend since high school—don’t think I should be involved with you,” she finally admitted. She swallowed hard. “They’re just worried about me, and they don’t want my career to get messed up because of this, either here at McGregor Enterprises or in the future when I apply to other jobs at other companies.”

“That’s fair,” I said, even though my mouth felt dry at the thought of losing her. But I could tell how torn up she was about all of this. And I knew that no relationship with me could ever be worth the loss of her family. “I can’t let you choose between me and your family,” I said quietly. “You should choose them, of course. You should always choose them.” I smiled crookedly. “If I had any family left, that’s what I would do.”

I paused and then took a deep breath, preparing to say the words that I knew were going to hurt me to say. “I’ll stop being...intimate with you. If that’s what you want.”

Abby shook her head, though. “That’s not what I want. Not at all,” she said, staring down at her hands. “I don’t want to choose, that’s the problem. Them over you, or you over them. I don’t want either of those things. I care about you.”

I stared at her for a long moment, noticing the bitter twist to her smile. It shouldn’t be like this. If I had known that I was going to put her in a position like this, I never would have tried anything with her. But I supposed it was too late for all of that now.

I hated to think that I had hurt her, though. I hated to think that I had come between her and her family. I stared down at my hands as well. “I care about you too,” I admitted quietly. Then, even more quietly: “And to be honest, that scares me. I’m not a relationship kind of guy, not normally. But you’re different.”