Page 27 of Dearest Protector

I wasn’t paying her to give a shit about my nutritional habits, and I’d never asked her to bring me lunch, yet she still did it every single work day.

Ian helped himself to a bottle of water as he said, “Bullshit. You know exactly what I mean. I saw the way you looked at Ariel the other day when she brought lunch. While I commend you on the way you’re helping her with this assistant job, I’m not sure it’s strictly business for you.”

It wasn’t.

Never had been, and never would be.

Not with Ariel.

But I wasn’t sure that was something I wanted to share with my older brother.

Ian was in a committed relationship with Ariel’s best friend, and I was pretty sure that Ian shared everything with Katie.

At this point, I didn’t know if revealing my situation was a good idea.

“We’re friends, too,” I hedged, hoping he’d drop this line of questioning.

Hell, I barely understood my feelings for Ariel myself. I sure as hell didn’t think I could explain them to anyone else.

They didn’t make sense.

They weren’t logical.

They weren’t rational at all.

But they were there, whether I completely understood them…or not.

Unfortunately, becoming her friend hadn’t stopped my dick from getting hard every time I saw her.

I wanted her.

The problem was, I’d actually come to like her and admire her, too, which had screwed up my head even worse.

It would have been easier if she’d ended up being a total bitch or so self-absorbed that she was totally unlikeable.

Unfortunately for me, that wasn’t the case.

She was real.

She was trustworthy.

She didn’t give a shit about my family name or my vast fortune.

She was the kind of female I could talk to about anything, which was rare in my world.

She was the sort of woman a guy wanted to see every damn day.

Ariel cared, and I was quickly realizing how good it felt to have a woman in my life that saw me as a regular guy.

She fussed over me sometimes, and God help me, but I actuallyenjoyedthat.

I looked forward to leaving the Blackwood offices because I hoped she’d still be at my place when I got home.

I now had something other than more work waiting at home, and that entire concept was foreign to me, but I was getting addicted to having her around.

Ian took a break from wolfing down his food to grumble, “Do friends always look at each other like they wish they were naked and alone together? I fucking recognize that look, Ben. I look at Kate the same way.”

Normally, I’d probably tease Ian about the fact that he was the only one who referred to Katie as Kate, but I didn’t.